As a third-generation farmer, John Kolk is not one to shy away from new innovations and technologies.
If he can see the potential to improve how a crop is grown and harvested, he’s willing to give a new idea a chance, and that extends to the harvesting of wind and sun.
“I’ve always been interested, growing up in southern Alberta, with wind and sun as a resource.”
Kolk, who makes his home near Picture Butte, enjoys the challenge of germinating an idea and seeing where it will take him. One such idea began with him wondering just what could be done with the unused pivot corners on his land, the three acres that can’t be watered and remain under utilized on most irrigated land.
At first he thought about the connection between needing power to run his irrigation pivots and the potential for using a wind turbine in the pivot corner. From that idea he eventually saw the opportunity to use solar panels.
While irrigation pumps are generally only running a few months out of the year, the power generated by solar panels could be harvested year round. He said what drove him was the desire to make better use of natural resources such as the wind and sun.
He took a hard look at the technology that was available and decided to foot the bill himself to install a 10kW solar photovoltaic system on one of his irrigation plots southeast of Iron Springs. On Wednesday he welcomed Gary Mar, who is currently seeking to become the new leaders of the provincial Conservative Party, to see the system in use.
Mar said Alberta has a tremendous opportunity to become a leader in the generation of power from the sun, wind and geothermal energy.
“Projects like this are leading edge.”
Kolk considers his $55,000 investment an investment in research and understanding of the potential future benefit of solar power in the agricultural sector.
“Ideas are not much good until you put them into practise.”
While the cost of solar energy generation has come down in recent years, Kolk said there is still room to make the technology more cost effective. Changes are needed within the province to make it possible for more Albertans to generate their own power for their specific needs, with an opportunity to sell their surplus generation back to the electrical grid.
He suggests a combination of power pricing and carbon tax credits may be one way to make it more cost effective for more consumers to generate wind and solar energy.
He currently uses both wind and solar power at his home acreage just north of Picture Butte to generate enough power for both his home and shop.
For Kolk, the decision to invest in solar power was based more on a desire to invest in the future rather than in a cost-recovery model for his own operation.
“We did a bunch of learning.”
He worked closely with Rick Dunsmore of Goose Creek Renewable Energy Inc. out of Blackie, who built and installed the racking system with six-foot screw piles, on which are mounted 45 Sharp 235W modules.
They are powered by three 5kW SUNERGY 208V low-voltage PV inverters manufactured by Sustainable Energy Technologies Inc. of Calgary.
Dunsmore said the biggest challenge was coming up with an all-weather inverter. His company focused on pre-assembling all of the components in Blackie so the whole set up could be installed on Kolk’s land last June.
The 240 volt system is the first in Canada.
“John’s been a good partner for us.”
He said the project was a bit of an experiment for his company who worked closely with Brent Harris, CTO and co-founder of Sustainable Energy Technologies Inc., to make the system “plug and go” thereby making it more cost effective for consumers.
Harris said the inverters used on the Kolk project are a second generation model.
They had to be built to with stand the extreme variances in southern Alberta temperatures.
“It’s basically a pilot installation.”
For his company the many goal is to make the set up “plug and go” so consumers can simply plug it in and start generating power.
Harris said while Alberta has been able to make some strides when it comes to solar power generation the financial incentives are still lacking. But he sees the potential for growth in Alberta. Germany is currently leading the world when it comes to solar power generation.
The country installed half of the world’s solar power installations last year at 8000 mega watts of solar capacity. Germany now has a capacity to generate 25,000 mega watts of solar power which is equal to the whole power capacity for all of Alberta.
“We are a little ways behind.”
He said because Alberta has some of the cheapest energy in the world it has been slower to develop other alternatives such as wind and solar. Now the growth in the industry seems to be picking up in the United States.
“I’m excited about Alberta now,” said Harris.
“I think it is the future, a future that won’t be fully realized in 10 years,” said Kolk.
Kolk feels Alberta has a role to play in the development of wind and solar power generation technology.
He said it will take hard work and tweaking to make the technology work and work well for everyone.
“Alberta is uniquely positioned …to try and lead on this.”