Gumboots weren’t the only bright idea on the soggy Masset airfield this Sunday.
Tll Yahda Energy is weeks away from switching on a 2-megawatt array of solar panels that the Haida-owned renewable energy company built on the open ground by the airport runway.
The 11-acre solar farm is expected to supply roughly nine per cent of what Haida Gwaii’s northern electrical grid demands each year, leading to a significant drop in fuel needed for the otherwise diesel-powered grid.
“Renewable energy is huge right now in Canada and Indigenous people are leading the way,” said Sean Brennan, Tll Yadha’s implementation manager, after leading a group from the Swiilawiid Sustainability Society’s renewable energy symposium on a quick tour.
For a while at least, Haida Gwaii’s north-end solar farm will be the largest in B.C. It will also be the first time one of the 44 mostly Indigenous communities in B.C. that aren’t connected to the province’s main grid will start feeding clean power into an otherwise diesel-fired system.
“We’re the first ones out of the gate,” Brennan said.
Others are coming up. On a former sawmill site in Anahim Lake, the Ulkatcho First Nation is building a solar array set to displace 1.1 million litres of diesel a year. It helps that solar panel prices have dropped by 90 per cent in the last decade, while becoming two or three times as efficient.Even on a grey day in Masset, Brennan said the panels will gather plenty of power.
Called Solar North until it gets a Haida name, perhaps at a switch-on ceremony coming up, Brenann said the solar array cost $10.5 million to buy and install. BC Hydro spent more than twice that to upgrade its system so it can handle the power.
After some commissioning work, Tll Yadha and BC Hydro are expected to sign a 20-year electricity purchase plan for the solar farm starting in early 2025.
The solar farm can start sending power without it, but BC Hydro will soon install a battery system by its generating system that can take better advantage of the solar array.
Once charged, the battery will be able to discharge power to the grid for up to four hours — meaning solar power could keep lights on for part of the night. The battery should also improve the quality of electrical power.
Brennan said it took five years to get Solar North to this stage, but after everything they’ve learned, Tll Yahda’s next projects should go faster. A Solar South array is planned for K’il Kun Xidgwangs Daanaay, the airport in Sandspit. A second 2-megawatt array is also planned at the Masset Airport.
Brennan said three-quarters of all renewable energy projects in Canada built in last decade have been in Indigenous communities, largely because so many have been made to rely on diesel power until now.
He said it’s a good fit for a Haida company.
“Renewable energy really aligns with Indigenous values,” he said. “Once people can produce their own energy, they have a lot more freedom to make their own choices.”