Could this be solar power's time to shine in Alberta?

Source: · CBC News · | November 6, 2021

'We're an energy powerhouse and it’s not just in our oil and gas space'

Heather MacKenzie, executive director of Solar Alberta, checks out the solar array on a roof at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. (Adrienne Lamb/CBC)

"At first it was a bit of a slog getting solar going in Alberta," says Heather MacKenzie, executive director of Solar Alberta, but "the growth has been exponential in recent years." 

This week, alternative energy sources like solar are front and centre at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. 

The not-for-profit Solar Alberta is turning 30 this month and it's taking stock of that growth, MacKenzie says. 

What started as a do-it-yourself solar club has grown to an educational organization with 170 business members supporting a wide range of projects from an egg farm on a Hutterite colony, to solar-powered food trucks, public buildings like the Edmonton Convention Centre and community projects like an Indigenous-owned solar farm in Fort Chipewyan.  

• Indigenous-owned solar farm opens in remote northern Alberta community

• How Canada's largest solar farm is changing Alberta's landscape

In a province dominated by oil and gas, solar makes up only between two and three per cent of the electrical grid, MacKenzie says. But, she adds, "we're really in a very large growth phase of solar in Alberta right now."

She says solar contributed 170 MW to the grid in 2020 and by the end of 2023 that number will have jumped to 4,600 MW.