Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program was produced with a support of Storyhive creativity, connected by Telus. For more information, please visit storyhive.com.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well, I'm in over my head. No one told me, trying to keep my footprint small was harder than I thought it could be. Tryin’ to save the planet. Oh, will someone please save me. Tryin’ to save the planet, oh will someone please save me?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Welcome to in over my head. I'm Michael Bartz. My guest today is Bryce AllRed. Bryce has worked as a commercial and industrial electrician throughout Western Canada for the past 30 years. Renewable energy specifically solar PV is his passion. He has served on various boards, including environment, Lethbridge, being born and raised in the foothills of Alberta and living in Lethbridge for the past 40 years. Bryce has a strong sense of community here. Welcome to in over my head rice pleasure to be here. Yeah. So I brought you in today cause you're a solar guy, right?
Speaker 4 (01:03):
I am a solar guy, right.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
And so my off-grid tiny house. We rely a lot on solar, right? Everything is, is 12 volts and it's it's for solar and that's realistic in a small space. It's 18.5 square meters, 200 square feet. Right. but how realistic is that in a big house, a full-size, you know, regular house to run just off of solar?
Speaker 4 (01:27):
As realistic as your bank account is. So one of the main things that people overlook that I see and I've, I've budgeted some large, you know, 1500, 2000 square foot off grid homes. What's what they fail to realize is you have to design your solar for the worst case scenario. So we look at December 21st is the longest day. And then we look at days of autonomy. So is it going to be cloudy for three or four or five days? So we're essentially oversizing a system. That's going to get you through the worst day of the year by doing that, we're massively over-building because you're wasting so much of that solar resource in the summertime, right? So when we build a grid tight system, it's averaged over the course of 12 months. So we're trying to offset and being that zero electrically over 12 months. So you make too much power in the summer and you sell it back. You don't make enough power in the winter. And so you have to augment it with utility now back to the tiny home. If you've got some other source of power, you know, emergency generator, which a lot of people do, then that works perfectly for, for an off grid.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah. Because I guess yeah. A residential houses, a little different because you are tied into the grid still, right? Yeah,
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yeah. To be totally off grid, you can absolutely do. It might cost you 50 to a hundred thousand dollars. Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
And I guess that would be another thing is the affordability, right? That's right. Yeah. And I feel, do you find most of the people that most of your customers are they just looking to supplement their power or to go totally off grid? Like we are, we
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Don't have a ton of off-grid customers. We've had lots of inquiries until they get to that point where they realize, oh gosh, maybe this isn't going to work. And they haven't really thought it through as to how their lifestyle is going to change. Right. So what some people do, they'll have this idea of, we want to move off grid. So we lived in this 1500 square foot bungalow. We use this many watt hours a month and they're going to try and translate that to an off-grid home. And it's just not quite as easy as it sounds. You need to really take a look at your lifestyle and what you want to do to change that, to consume less. And that's really all about part of tiny living anyway, consuming less, right. Using less resources.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, for sure. And that's what we found very much so that we we use, I got rid of basically all of our electronic appliances, like anything I could replace with a hand powered or some other device I would do. Yeah. And that was kind of a fun challenge for me. But I also found it was an interesting shift because you know, a regular house, you, although at times you use more things in the evening, right. Because the power draws less, but it's the opposite with solar. I find, cause now it's like, it's a bright, sunny day. Let's charge everything. Let's run everything while we have the sun. And as soon as it goes away, then we can, you know, a hundred
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Percent even, even with grid-tied. I had a home up in on the west side that we had 10 kilowatts on. It was one of the, one of the first and largest systems in the city. And we found that we did exactly that we would, we had an electric dryer. So we would wait until a Sunday afternoon when the sun was up as best we could. Right. To try to make, to make to make use of that solar energy because solar used is worth more than solar sold. Right. In a grid type situation. You say that again. So if you're used solar at home, it's worth more to you than if you export it and sell it back to the grid. Okay. It just has a little bit to do with some of your distribution and transmission charges that you, that you don't pay. If you don't buy the commodity. Right. If you don't have those kilowatt hours delivered to your home, it's not much, it's not a lot of money, but it is a little bit in it all when solar is concerned, every penny counts. For sure. For sure.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
And I've heard that Lethbridge and Southern Alberta is one of the sunniest areas in Canada. Is that true?
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Yeah. From pretty much from, oh, say Moose jaw west to the Crowsnest Pass. To Lethbridge, but the Warner area, Taber area, especially we have the sixth best solar resource on the planet. Well, and as you can see, that's why we're seeing large utility farms coming Travers solar, or sorry. Travers is just getting ready to build up in Vulcan county, 400 megawatts of solar. That's a half a billion dollars project. Wow. They just commissioned 160 megawatt project in, in Claresholm and there's, and there's dozens and dozens of others on the books. So we do have a fantastic resource.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Well, that's good. Yeah, because that was another question is, is Southern Alberta embracing solar energy because there could be some resistance maybe with the oil sector and such
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Well being Alberta. Right. it's absolutely a conversation that we have a lot. It's without getting political about it, it's a struggle here and Lethbridge is quite conservative. Sure. So it's, if you can't make the economic case, it's tough to make the environmental case. Sure. We do have, you know, we do have customers that say, you know, they might even be retired and the, like, this is, we're going to do our part. We can afford it. Now. It doesn't matter if it pays back or not. This is just what we want to do to feel good. And do our part for the, for the, for the climate. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah. Cause in my mind, like, like you said, we have so much sun resource. Why wouldn't we use that?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
And so do you find that people are talking about affordability? How much I know we can talk specifically, but how much would it cost the average person to add a solar system to an average house in Southern Alberta?
Speaker 4 (07:15):
The average home in Canada consumes about seven and a half megawatt hours a year. So that's about 600 kilowatt hours every month. That's an average. So if you were to have a south facing roof and you were to build a five and a half kilowatt system, that would probably get you really close to net zero. So right now in Lethbridge, we can install for right around the $2 a watt mark. So you're looking at 11, 12,000 bucks. So it's not, it's not terrible. Right. When I got into the business, it was borderline four bucks. So it's almost come down in half. And how long ago was that? About seven years ago. Okay. So more recently we've seen the technology is changing, but what they're able to do and with any electronics the size of a computer chip while it's much smaller than it was 20 years ago, for sure.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
So they're able to put the same amount of power or sorry. They're able to put more power in the same footprint. So for example, when I did my home on the west side, our modules and panels is a, is a, is not a proper term. I'll just, that's it, that's one of my pet peeves. It's not a proper term. That's, that's a modules is what we want. Module is what it's called. Yeah. anyway, the modules that we use were 265 Watts, well now we're seeing 500 watt modules and that was only five years ago. So on, when you can get more power out of the same space, then you need less modules. You need less racking, you need less labor. So the cost drives down. Plus the cost of modules is probably half of what it was back then, for sure.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
So, so do you see with, with the cost of the materials and the installation and the upkeep, do you see solar as a viable source of power for the future?
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Oh, it already is a viable, viable source of power. People get hung up on the payback period. So if it doesn't pay for itself in three or four years, then it's a dog. Well, my answer to that would be what's the payback period of that new Dodge you got sitting in your driveway, you just spent 60 grand on. Sure. It's a depreciating depreciating asset. Solar is an appreciating asset. Now there's better investments for sure. Like it's not the end all to be off, you know, if you're looking at it strictly monetarily speaking. Sure. But it's, I mean, the technology is solid. It's, it's been around bell labs, created the first commercial solar module in the mid fifties for use in they signed up on a satellite and that it's a little 50 watt module and that module is still making power today. It's down in in a museum called PV USA down the states. So the technology is totally sound. And yeah, it's it's flyable today for sure.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
And do you see like every house in Southern Alberta having solar one day?
Speaker 4 (10:01):
No, no, no, no, for sure. There's some places where it just doesn't make sense. Okay. Okay. Shading issues. If your roof is not structurally able to support it, you know, had for some buildings at some point, it just becomes it's, it's just not worth what it would take to, to upgrade your home so that it can receive the solar. So structurally for example, there's a lot of houses built here in the forties and fifties that are stick framed. They don't have engineered trust systems and by today's codes, they wouldn't even pass supporting the shingle weight. Well, let alone adding on another.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, I guess that's a good conversation you would have with the person who approached you because they might think, I just want to put panels on and go off grid and, you know, 10,000 bucks.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
So in the city of Lethbridge like everything that we do is, is, has to be electrical permitted building permits, depending on how it's installed. You may have to have a structural engineer design and sign off on some things. If a home doesn't have an engineer trust system, we won't install on it without an engineer signing off. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So it's gotta be a, a newer home. Yeah. So a little,
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Maybe a little more complicated than, than some people might.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I think there's, there's a little more to it. Yeah. It's not just slap ups and some modules on the roof and call it a day. Yeah. And
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Even with our tiny home, it is off-grid and it's on wheels. Also. We got a lot, we got around a lot of the zoning and coding things and it's a lot simpler. Right. And like I said, I tried to use as few electronic appliances as possible. Everything is 12 volts. So we're able to run on a sunny day, run everything just fine.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Right. So it's basically an RV system basically. Yeah. Those kinds of components. Perfect. Perfect.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
But yeah, maybe not so much with a big house. Right. is there something let's say that someone can't invest 10 or $12,000 into a system or maybe they're renting, but they still want to rely less on a non-renewable energy. They want to get into solar. Is there a way they can kind of dip their feet into it? What do you mean? Like, I don't know, like, like I even bought like a small solar panel to charge my phone, something like that. Just to kind of try it out to get your, or an idea of how much power they're using day-to-day yeah,
Speaker 4 (12:18):
For sure. And you don't have to go net zero. I mean, you can go 10%. Sure. You know, if your budget dictates that you got a couple of thousand bucks to spend, by all means, you could put a couple of modules on your garage, you could monitor there and you could see what they're doing and they'll feed into your home and you'll use that power and you'll export it. You know, if your, if your house doesn't use any part of that, that day, if you're on holidays or something, it'll export to the grid. We have one system out in Hartsville and he's got four modules. He's got a small home. Doesn't use any power gentlemen lives alone. Sure. That's what it took to get him where he wanted it to be. So cool. Little system. I think he paid three or $4,000 for it. Yeah. So
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Maybe, I guess it's about kind of seeing what your needs are and kind of adjusting and working around that. Yeah, for sure. If you have a two, 3000 square foot home, maybe it's not as realistic.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Right. Well, people use power houses. Don't right. So we do a full audit of the electrical bills and then we come and audit the property and we look at your electrical service. We look at the wiring and, and the meter, all those things have to be taken into account when we design a system. But it's your lifestyle mostly. Right. We try to look at time of, of usage. Like when are you really active? Are you doing more at night or are you doing, and we try to overlay that usage curve with the production curve of what solar will do. We have a database that we use through some software programs and they go back 50, 60 years of weather patterns and irradiance and all that sort of thing, temperatures.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
And so you said usage versus production. So that would be how much sunlight you're getting on a certain time of year
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Or the course of the whole year. So every month of the year, and then we look at your electricity bill and we overlay that and we try to match the two up as close as we can. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
And are you finding that you're getting more customers over these likes when you started seven years ago? Are you finding things are getting busier? People are, there's more demand for solar. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
There is. There's more demand. It's come more to the forefront for sure. We've had some good fed some good, some good programs through the the previous government and the previous government before that actually. And then through this government with a joint federal initiative, there's money available to do some, some solar work. Okay. So like a subsidy kind of subsidy. Yeah. It's basically a grant program. So it's usually around 20, between 20 and 30% that they'll pay off the top. Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I mean that, that kind of gets it over the hump of making it economical for most people when they're, when they're just driven by that we try to focus people on the levelized cost of energy. So here's the example that I use, Michael, if I could put a box in your backyard and you could pay $15,000 for this box, you don't have to put anything in the box ever, ever again, but it will put out all of the gasoline that you need for your car for the next 25 years for 90 cents a litre.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Would you pay for it upfront? Yeah, for sure. Well, you're, you're, you're hedging against inflation, right? So God, I don't even know what gas is now, but 10, was it a buck 30? Is that really? So in the next 25 years, even at two or 3% inflation, you know, you're going to be over $2. So if we could guarantee it for the next 25 years, that you'd never pay more than 90 cents for that power, that's the levelized cost of gasoline. Sure. So we focus people on the levelized cost of energy. That's one, that's one key thing. So we can make power for people on an average home for about six, 7 cents, maybe even 5 cents. If it's a big system, there's a real economy of scale was solar. So the cost per watt that you will pay to install, it goes down the larger it gets, right?
Speaker 4 (16:13):
So it's like a farmer hauling, one bushel of grain to the elevator or a thousand bushels in a truck cost per bushel is higher or lower. Right. For sure. So that's one thing that we focus on and the other is what is the cost of doing nothing? So what people tend to forget is you're going to buy power one way or another. You want to buy your own or do you want to buy somebody else's? So for now, just a real quick example of that average home, I talked about the seven, seven and a half megawatt hours a year. So at 6 cents, over the course of 30 years, they're going to spend probably in the range of $40,000. So, and that's at about 3% inflation rate. So if you could spend $29,000 today, build that array. And at the end of that 30 year term, you had a $6,000 check in your pocket and you didn't pay that $40,000.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
What's better. Right? So even though it might've taken 20 years or 15 years or whatever the case may be, depending on the size to pay it back, so to speak, you're still looking at over $50,000 difference. And that really gets lost. It gets lost in the conversation. When people look at solar and say, oh, it's going to take 15 years to get my money back. Well, how many things do you buy that? You get your money back. Fair enough, TVs, trucks, computers, we all spend tens of thousands of dollars on those items. We don't even, we don't even consider getting our money back. We just use it because we enjoy it. Yeah. Well, solar, solar you'll get your money back. Just depends on when. Yeah. And
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Like you said, you have to use some sort of energy
Speaker 4 (17:52):
In winter and such yeah. Pay me now or pay me later of sorta thing. Right. And not me, but you got to pay the power company or pay yourself, right? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah. And for me, it's like, I look at, I use the word sustainable living. Right. I feel like the way that we're living is, is more sustainable because it doesn't matter what the price of gas is or energy. Cause we're, we're off grid. It's just, just totally out of the, it's just out of our minds, which is, there are different things that we have to consider, but for sure, it's nice that way
Speaker 4 (18:22):
For everybody. And it doesn't have, I mean, it's not the, it's not the perfect solution. It's one of a bunch of solutions. Solar has a carbon footprint. We have to mind, we got to get aluminum, we've got to get glass. So it's not, you know, it's not the the end all to be all for sure. But it's, it's a vital important part of, of the, of the equation. Definitely.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
And so you were a industrial commercial electrician. What got you into renewable energy?
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Oh, it was just by accident. One of the utilities put out w call an RFP or request for proposal and asked for companies to reply, to become a solar installer for them. And I was at a different company at the time and I thought, Hey, we could do this. I mean, it's just solar, it's not rocket science right at the time. So I submitted our, our bio and our, you know, company information, et cetera, et cetera. And we were one of the few firms that had a specific safety program that they required. And so kind of by default, we were given Southern Alberta as a territory. So we worked with this utility company for a few years, and then we went off on our own things, evolved from there. But yeah, it was just kind of an accident really, for sure. I mean, I've always been, you know, I'm a farm boy and I've always kind of tried to be a good steward of the land and those sorts of things, but it wasn't till I got into that, that I really started paying attention to my electricity bill. I couldn't read it nor understand it now. I, I show people what it means. Right. And it's like anything, it's what you do and you're familiar with no, for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yeah. I think that's interesting. Cause it's like, I feel like the one side is the environmentalist's right. Who want to be off grid like me, myself. But then you have people who are, like, we said, more conservative who want to be stewards of the land and you talk dollars and cents and it's economic. And maybe that makes sense for them actually, like why not? It makes total sense. Right. For sure. Yeah. So I appreciate you breaking that down a bit to the dollars and cents that you bet stuff yeah. To reduce our environmental footprint, would you recommend using solar power?
Speaker 4 (20:26):
I would recommend using solar partner as part of the solution to reduce your Hmm. And what were the, the other parts? Well, use less power. It's always more cost-effective to use less than to create more. So use less energy at home instead of buying solar to create more power. So you can just use more power cheaper. Right. It makes sense to get rid of a TV. Don't don't use as many electronics, you know, things like that. Do you have any other examples of things you could do to reduce your power usage?
Speaker 4 (20:59):
You know, I mean there's energy efficient appliances, but all that stuff comes at a cost. Right. I think that, I think the key thing is just, is, is reduce your own consumption and fix things, repair things, reuse, right. Reuse, reduce, recycle, kind of a thing. That's Catalina would be proud of that one. Yeah. I, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a climate scientist, I'm not a professional in that field and it, and it gets political, it gets messy. But yeah, I think, I think if we just all used a little bit less and, and, and maybe did a little more maintenance and took care of the things we had and, and fix them, don't throw them away for sure. That kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean, there's a whole, you know, there's a whole or around recycling and is it good or bad? And I mean, you could go down that rabbit hole forever, right? Yeah. But so I just think the key is just using less. I
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Think it's a pretty safe bet you use fewer things less. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for coming on today, Bryce.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
I appreciate it. It was a pleasure. Appreciate the advice. All right. Thanks so much. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Okay. That was my conversation with Bryce. I learned a lot. The one thing that just stands out for me is modules. I've been calling the panels like an idiot. Call them modules. Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Bartz. Here's the feeling a little less in over our head when it comes to saving the planet.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
In over over my head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz. Sound engineering by Rodrigo Henriquez. Original music by Gabriel Thaine special, thanks to Lisa Pruden and Jessica Gibson.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
This program was produced with a support of Telus.