Revised: they sold out the first solar garden and are working on the next, how many solar gardens will we be paying for???
Nelson community solar garden big sale 200 solar panels, 72 sold......
If you are a Nelson hydro customer outside the city, read on, you too are paying for this. Nelson has already seen two grants of public money picking your pocket for solar demonstration systems for over $50,000, picking our pockets.
Greenwashers Picking Our Pockets
Once More
Can Solar power be sold?
Ask the cities highest paid person Alex Love manager of Nelson hydro what the value of solar power is to this city. Once upon a time the project was supposed to be only $25,000 from Nelson hydro all future costs funded by those opting in. This was told to me by Mr. Love when we first met over a year ago, repeated to me by the mayor at the spring Nelson hydro budget meeting. If you read the city website it says there is only one person against this project,(I am sure they mean me) when I met Alex love in early October, he again said I am the only person against the project. I told him I could bring him many..
The consulting engineers supporting information is from a pyranometer, a small coffee cup sized device measuring sunlight hours, not representative of what really happens to a solar panel.
This shows how a tiny amount of snow affects solar power in the real world.
Our grandchildren will inherit these solar panels, in the
weeds in 25 years.
The chart below from the consulting engineers report showing annual energy that has never before been seen in our area and we have years of real data that I presented to Mr. Love and emailed the consultant. Mr. Love told me my data was irrelevant, the consultant thanked me and said it's good to consider data from all sources.
Notice in the upper blue bar the cost at that time
$293,514.00.
Why do the financial calculations use the theoretical power? 61MWh
They are scratching their heads over in Kimberley, the SUNMINE solar project
$5.65M we know of isn't making the power projected, 63% of projections for December.
The Nelson solar garden consulting engineer is the SunMine engineer, using the same Swiss modeling program that was used for their project. They claim almost double the annual sunhours in Kimberley as Nelson receives. As much as Phoenix Arizona.
The city of Kimberley is in it for $2M, they will hopefully come out even, you and I are in for the rest, its all grant money. At least the Western Diversification Fund pulled out their subsidy at the beginning. Their mandate, to support projects with a business case.
Our Bonnington solar site has had NO data collected.
This is not engineering, this is greenwashing politics.
The mist from the dams spillover creates a fog and in winter ice fog, any chances this will affect solar power? Without data who knows?
Who cares about ice and snow, solar power in winter isn't worth talking about.
The chart below will help you understand why solar power at 49 degrees north in winter has no power!
There is no power in weak low angle winter sunlight, that is what this graph below is showing you.
Everyone thinks solar power is year round, its not.
I think we can do better things in Nelson with our money.
When I first met Mr. Love in 2014 I thought I could help him from my decades of actually having worked with solar power. When we first me, he told me the project would not move forward if there wasn't a business case. Its clear this has never been about a business case.
We have a ready to go engineering study for microhydro on the five mile water intake, it shows it would not only pay for the necessary upgrades but make power and money for maybe the next century like our dam. Nakusp just put microhydro on their city water intake for $150,000 making power for 30-40 homes, in the dark in winter when we need it most. Slocan city is pursuing microhydro to mitigate the lost income from their sawmill closure. Why are we wasting money on solar panels that might last 25 years , doing nothing for us in winter when we buy the most power from Fortis?
AND THEY WANT TO DOUBLE THE SIZE, ANOTHER SOLAR GARDEN
Can you afford Nelson now?
Get your Window Stickers
Look at Me, I'm green
Everyone who participates will get one for every panel they buy so they can proudly put them in their windows, apparently a sticker for every solar panel you buy.
I expect to see the mayor and all city councilors who vote for this bylaw to have several window stickers, Mr. Love manager of Nelson hydro, highest paid person in the city, certainly should have several stickers in his window. How about the city manager, stickers in his window too.
There was mention of allowing those less fortunate to be able to participate with low or no interest loans, I bet those single parents struggling to exist in this expensive city will be lining up for their stickers.
Contact city council if you think this is a waste.
This applies to all Nelson hydro customers, not just those living in the city of Nelson.
The Ecosave coordinator contractor for the city bringing this project to us says "its not about a pressing need for power but rather starting a movement"
I can only think of one kind of movement myself.
UPDATE: Years of known local solar data I provided to the manager of Nelson hydro, staff and his consultant showing the consultants estimate suggested annual power of known data by 25%.
Now the system has been installed over a year, they added 25% more panels, it did make
the original estimate that was exaggerating all known data by 25% and they were told.
Even with their exaggeration they published an item stating "in the opinion of local experts(who?) they could make over 70,000kWh annually, a 35 % exaggeration.
Of course it was supposed to be cheaper than hydro power in 7 years also.
Thanks for all the work you have put in to shed light on this boondoggle. Solar power has its place, but not in Nelson. This will cost every Nelson Hydro customer money.
ReplyDeleteA costly feel good movement that needs to be stopped....
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