Conor Speers doesn’t have a utility bill.
A farmer in Sturgeon County, Speers said he was interested in solar power two years ago when he was designing his new home. That led him to erect about 177 kilowatts of rooftop and ground-mounted solar on his property — enough to power his entire farm — and pair it with geothermal heating.
“Between that and the solar, we don’t have a gas hookup, so we don’t have a utility bill,” Speers said.
Speers’s home is one of 18 high-tech homes on this year’s Edmonton Eco-Solar Home Tour. Taking place June 7-8, this free self-guided tour gives guests a chance to see ultra-efficient homes and talk to their owners to learn how they can save money and fight global heating.
This is the 25th edition of the tour, which started back in 2000, said Andrew Mills, president of the Eco-Solar Home Tour Society of Alberta. (The 2020 tour was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.)
“We’ve got some fabulous homes to see,” he said, including one that’s a throwback to the first Eco-Solar Tour: the Riverdale Geothermal Home.
Net-zero architect Peter Amerongen owns that home and had it on the 2000 tour as a really efficient, but not net-zero, home, Mills said. Thinking he need to “walk the walk,” Amerongen recently set out to retrofit his home with geothermal heating. Once its solar panels arrive, the home will produce as much energy as it consumes, making it net-zero in terms of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
Cost-cutters
Mills said Albertans can save substantial dollars through energy efficiency renovations such as insulation, solar panels, and heat pumps. He did so over 20 years, and recently got his home to net-zero energy use.
“Our annual bill for lights, heat, and two electric cars is essentially zero,” he said, and he’s greatly reduced his use of fossil fuels.
Mills said demand for eco-renovations dropped considerably in the last year since the federal government cancelled its Greener Homes Grant. Homeowners looking for ways to pay for such home improvements can still tap the federal Greener Homes Loan and the Clean Energy Improvement Program, the latter of which lets you pay for your renovations through your taxes over decades (and is available in St. Albert and Sturgeon County).
“The loan stays with the property,” Mills said, which means you don’t have to worry about paying it off before you sell.
Speers said while solar makes a lot of sense financially, geothermal doesn’t unless you have a bunch of spare solar like he did — natural gas is still too cheap to compete. His geothermal system cost about as much as a traditional gas line. He kept the system’s costs down by super-insulating his house (there’s a metre of insulation in the attic alone) and installing it himself with his own equipment.
Guests at Speers’s stop on the tour can also check out his super-efficient heat-pump washer/dryer, which lets him clean and dry clothes without having to switch them between machines and cost about as much as a separate washer and dryer.
“It’s working great,” Speers said.
“I might get a second one of these to put in the garage.”
They can also ask him about his plans to plant fruit trees atop his geothermal field — trees that will be protected by llamas.
“I started with sheep, but coyotes killed all the sheep,” he said.
The Eco-Solar Home Tour runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 7-8. Visit www.ecosolar.ca/edmonton.html for details.
