The Tourism London centre in London, Ontario now greets visitors with a giant, photovoltaic metal tree that the city expects will supply, in combination with two other solar panels, half of the centre’s yearly energy needs. The tree and its companion panels will produce 10,000 kW of solar energy annually, at a cost to the city of $160,000.
The Tourism London installation is a product of Ameresco, Inc.. The company’s thirty-seven years of training and experience have helped school boards in Sudbury, Erie, and other areas of Ontario reduce their carbon footprints and have brought renewable heat sources to condominiums and other residences in the province.
The giant metal tree features twenty-seven solar panels, each mounted to a leaf. The installation will offset about ten tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year, and stands as a symbol of the city’s progressive energy policy. “It’s iconic in the way it represents our commitment to renewable energy,” says Sean Russell, London’s Corporate Energy Manager. According to Tourism London General Manager John Winston, the solar tree and the two other panels fit with the spirit of the RETHINK Energy London initiative, which aims to increase renewable energy use at the corporate and community levels.
City a Solar Energy Leader
London expects to recoup the cost of the new photovoltaic installation by selling the power it generates to the province under the Ontario Power Authority’s feed-in tariff (FIT) program. The FIT helps create green jobs and training opportunities by paying above-market prices to producers of renewable energy who feed electricity into the grid. Tourism London expects to generate around $165,000 over the twenty years of the FIT contract, according to Russell, and the city plans to create many more solar energy jobs in the near future.
The centre is the tenth London location to install solar panels. By the end of 2011, as many as one hundred other solar energy installations will join the giant tree on business and residential properties in the city. This will create jobs for Southwestern Ontario’s solar installers and students about to graduate from photovoltaic training classes well into the future.
