An Update on Our Solar Demonstration Project

You might recall that during the summer of 2012, Yukon Energy installed some solar panels at the Whitehorse Rapids Fishladder. This is a demonstration project designed to test solar technology on a small (residential) scale, and to investigate the mechanics of net metering (feeding locally generated power back into the Yukon grid).

Results to date show that the panels have generated approximately one megawatt hour of electricity since they began operating and have fed 10 kilowatt hours back into the grid.

While the outputs are small, they are promising news for Yukoners interested in exploring solar technology for their own homes, and looking to feed some of that generation back into the grid once the Yukon government has established a net metering policy. Keep in mind that the amount of electricity required for the fishladder is quite a bit higher than for a typical Yukon home, so the amount of energy that an average house could feed back into the grid would be substantially higher.

We will continue to gather data from our solar system at the fishladder and are happy to share it with any Yukoners who are interested.

Photo credit: www.archbould.com