The City of Yorkton is looking to become involved in an interesting pilot project, if the city is one of two locales selected by Sask Power to take part.
The provincial electricity provider is launching a Self-generated Electricity Demonstration Project for Rinks.
At the regular meeting of Yorkton Council Darcy McLeod, Director of Community Development, Parks & Recreation explained the program is a new one. He said Sask Power recently announced the pilot program will explore the economic and environmental benefits of self-generated power projects at municipal ice rinks.
Two community rinks in Saskatchewan will be selected to install wind turbines to determine if self-generation can help community rinks lower their electricity costs.
The project is designed to collect data for five-years with the data obtained guiding future programs and opportunities in order to make the operation of ice rinks in Saskatchewan more affordable for communities.
The corporation is estimating that up to 65 per cent of the power required by each rink can be generated by a wind turbine, said McLeod.
That would be a significant saving for a municipality which has limited ability to influence its operating costs when union wages, utility costs and similar elements of facility operations are factored in.
It will be on the electricity side municipalities will have the greatest opportunity to lower their operational costs, and it will be through utilizing alternate energy generation opportunities.When the City of Yorkton was planning the Gallagher Centre upgrade and expansion there was initial interest in including a geothermal system which would have potentially lowered the cost of heating and cooling the building.
As costs escalated on the Gallagher Centre project the inclusion of a geothermal system, or even a detailed study into its viability and cost savings were trimmed from the project.
In the long run it may prove the worst dollars that could have been cut from the project, because it had the potential to net a return on the dollars invested.
Certainly electricity costs have continued to rise since the completion of the Gallagher Centre project, and there is little to suggest the trend upward will change moving forward. That means any investment which reduces those costs stands to see the returns actually grow moving forward.That makes concepts such as the deleted geothermal system which would draw heat energy from the ground, and the wind turbine are likely to look better in the future.
Another option to municipalities for energy creation is through the incineration.
Incineration with energy recovery is one of several waste-to-energy technologies which includes processes such as gasification, Plasma arc gasification, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion.
The incineration of garbage for energy may well be a process Yorkton needs to investigate as it plans for a multi-million dollar expansion to its landfill in the next few years.
Certainly as municipalities look for ways to continue to provide the services expected, they will need to find ways to either increase revenues, or reduce what are now costs beyond their control. Energy is one area which municipalities can lower costs by looking at cutting edge alternatives.
Yorkton missed the opportunity at the time of the Gallagher Centre, but are at least poised to work with Sask Power on wind turbine if selected as one of the two pilot locations.
As Councillor Ross Fisher said Monday, supporting the idea made sense, with, "Sask Power willing to pay for all the capital costs, there doesn't seem to be a down side to participate in this."
