A house in Orléans has become the first in Ottawa to sell power back to the local grid.
Even in December, the rooftop solar panels on the Helmerson family's home can produce enough power on a sunny day to meet the family's needs — and a little more.
The proof is displayed on the power meter outside.
"You see it flash? It's like 'Yay!'" said Stephanie Helmerson with a laugh, as she pointed to a flashing arrow that means the solar panels are sending electricity back to the grid.
The family bought the $12,000 system from Ottawa Solar Power and had it installed in October 2007. It's capable of producing up to one kilowatt of power.
Helmerson said she and her husband Shawn Helmerson were partly inspired by their three children to make the investment.
"The kids were really stressed out about global warming … and we wanted to show them, 'Yeah, you know what? You can make a difference,'" Helmerson said. "I hope it has given them a lot of comfort in seeing that."
This past summer, the solar panels on their home often generated surplus energy during the day. The family has no system to store power, so when it's dark or cloudy or snow is covering the solar panels, they buy power from the Hydro Ottawa grid, and power flows in the other direction.
Nevertheless, installing the system cut the family's summer hydro bills in half. Shawn Helmerson estimates that since the system was installed in October 2007, it has saved about 450 kilograms of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere — about the amount that is produced by an average car over 35 days.
At current hydro rates, it will take more than 15 years for the system to pay for itself, but the family is planning to get a smart meter that will allow them to double the price they get for their power.
Family changed habits
But even eking out those small savings requires the family to be conscientious — the average Ottawa household uses more power each hour than the Helmersons' solar system produces.
"We changed really dramatically how we used the hydro that we were using," Stephanie said.
The family dries their clothes outside and uses a high-efficiency air conditioner during the summer and unplugs all its appliances when they're not in use to minimize power consumption.
The system has some non-monetary benefits for the family of five, Helmerson said. For example, the teacher of her daughter's Grade 4 class asked to bring the whole class to the house as part of their studies about the environment.
"My daughter couldn't have been more proud."
Shawn Helmerson said he thinks the government could be doing more to encourage families to follow their example.
"Right now we're one family in Ottawa, which has a million people in it," he said, adding that the impact could be enormous if even 10 per cent of households in Ottawa had similar systems.
Stephanie Helmerson said she originally became interested in installing a solar system after reading a magazine article about a family in California that had such a system. It took about six months to get the panels working because Hydro Ottawa hasn't had much experience hooking up a residential solar system to the local grid, Helmerson said. The utility needed to figure out how to monitor the system and what to do if it needed to be shut down for emergencies.
