KingstonRegion.com / Tori Stafford / 04 June 2017
Local group Wintergreen Renewable Energy Co-op and SolarShare, a provincial solar energy co-op, hosted a tour and celebration at their Abbey Dawn Project on Sunday, June 4. There, a few dozen people toured the brand new 500 kW solar project, learning about the state-of-the-art tracker technology the project uses, and about how the system operates. The Abbey Dawn Project is the first in Canada to use Canadian company Morgan Solar’s Savanna dual-axis tracker technology, which follows the sun’s daily east-to-west path and seasonal changes in its elevation.
In short, the technology allows the system to run more efficiently, with yield increases of 25 to 40 per cent over those without the tracker technology.
[ FULL ARTICLE ]
I must admit that our transition away from fossil fuels isn’t complete. Much of what we buy — including a great deal of our food and even the energy-saving equipment we’ve installed in our home — is produced and shipped using fossil fuel energy. We can and will take further steps to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, but life altogether independent of them may not be possible in our economy without full withdrawal from it and a return to the kind of lifestyle that existed before the Industrial Revolution. Lee and I are incredibly pleased, though, with what we’ve accomplished. Reducing our carbon footprint has been a major emotional boost for us. We value knowing that our home is powered by solar energy that we, ourselves, collect, and that the good Earth shares its heat in winter and accepts our heat in summer by way of our geothermal system. Many people in our community have visited our home to check out our systems and ask us questions as they get started taking steps to cut their own carbon footprints. It’s immensely gratifying to be that example for others.
