Sunrays to Success
By: Matthew Conradi
June 2020
Success is an interesting concept to consider, for individuals and businesses alike. Defined as a degree or measure of succeeding, success is something we have the power to define for ourselves every day.
Businesses tend to determine success using numbers to measure the frequency of certain events, both good and bad. Events such as number of items sold, packages delivered, phone calls made, cars towed, windows washed, bridges built, and so on and so forth.
How does a renewable energy developer measure success?
What expectations do we set for ourselves as a business in a province that has historically been dominated by the oil and gas industry? To put it simply, we don’t.
We think it’s much more important to measure progress, while finding successes in everything we do along the way. Every project we complete is successful in further building upon our abilities to cater to the specific needs of New Brunswick. Every new connection made is a success in helping educate and inform the public, whether it be a college student looking for guidance, or a curious passerby walk-in at our Quispamsis office. Success is everywhere if you know where to look. Real progress is what validates all these small successes for us as a company; which is really what we are here to discuss.
Half-a-Megawatt of Solar
As of 2020, we are very excited to share that since our inception as a company, we have successfully installed over half-a-megawatt of solar generating capacity for businesses and communities across New Brunswick.
While I’d love to report that we had some sort of over-engineered confetti cannon prepared to celebrate the arrival of this milestone, the truth is that it took us all by surprise. I can recall walking into our COO’s office with a list I had compiled of all our previous solar projects. A sort of resume for ourselves. Sarah scans it over a couple of times, says it looks good. Then pauses for a beat, and just stares at me, almost puzzled. “How much solar have we actually installed?”. Cue the calculators.
What is a Megawatt?
This achievement likely begs a question for many of our readers. What is a megawatt of power? What can you actually do with a megawatt? Do you launch a rocket into space, or do you toast a bagel? Thankfully, our engineering team practically lives for crunching such numbers into nice digestible tidbits of information – food for the mind.
“Half a megawatt may not be enough energy to punch a rocket through our atmosphere, but it’s enough to toast precisely 16,875,000 bagels to absolute perfection”
A megawatt is equal to one-million watts, a more commonly used unit of measure for power. This means that half-a-megawatt is equal to half-a-million watts of power.
When you consider the power rating of solar installations, it is best to simply think of it as a generator. Just like one you would purchase at a store. Only you don’t pour gasoline or diesel into our generators. Instead, you pour in sunlight.
What to do with 500 Thousand Watts of Sunlight
So, what can you do with a five hundred-thousand-watt sunlight powered generator? This amount of solar is expected to produce around 675,000 kWh every year in New Brunswick’s climate. This is enough to supply power to 37 homes for an entire year. It’s also enough to fully charge a Tesla electric vehicle 13,500 times, or charge your iPhone over 60 million times!
So, half a megawatt may not be enough energy to punch a rocket through our atmosphere, but it’s enough to toast precisely 16,875,000 bagels to absolute perfection. We did the bagel math.
Since solar power is an energy source which will not burden our environment with any toxic CO2 emissions, this 675,000 kWh not only represents usable power, but usable power which has not been generated through the burning of fossil fuels.
Our half-a-megawatt of solar installations across New Brunswick will offset a total of 196 tons of CO2 emissions every year. This is equivalent to removing 103 cars from the road for an entire year, or driving 1.9 million kilometers. It’s the same as burning 525,866 tons of coal, or 1,105 barrels of oil. 196 tons is equal to the amount of CO2 that would be absorbed by planting 7,891 trees, and allowing them to grow for 10 years.
Growth of Solar Power in New Brunswick
These are facts and figures that get the geeky juices flowing for certain, at least in our office. What’s more, these numbers will only continue to grow as we continue to push the envelope for renewable energy in New Brunswick.
“Solar is simply a catalyst for positive change in New Brunswick”
What excites us most however, is something that we can’t really measure, and can’t provide any comparative metric for. What excites us the most, is the notion that New Brunswick is getting on board with solar. It not only represents clean energy, but a cleaner overall lifestyle. If communities can commit to solar, they are much more likely to be interested in other behavioural changes to reduce their environmental impact.
Managing consumption of goods, responsible waste disposal, and developing cleaner habits at home are all examples of changes everyone can make starting today in order to build healthier communities. Solar is simply a catalyst for positive change in New Brunswick.
Our team is very happy to be able to share our successes with the community, and encourage everyone to find their own successes in everything they do. Keep your eye on us, and keep in touch, because you can bet we’ve already got our sights set on that one-megawatt milestone.
