WHITEHORSE, YT – NorthwesTel announced today its new solar-diesel hybrid station is up and running, and will power the carrier’s Engineer Creek microwave site in the Yukon for the next 12 months.
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| Photo by Fritz Mueller |
Construction of the solar photovoltaic array pilot project began in July as part of an energy feasibility between NorthwesTel, Cold Climate Innovation of the Yukon Research Centre at Yukon College, and the Energy Solutions Centre of the Government of Yukon’s Department of Energy, Mines and Resources.
The site will run on solar energy for the next year with slight diesel power supplementation during the winter. During this time, data will be compiled and analyzed.
“The site has been working perfectly since we turned off the diesel engines,” said Northwestel infrastructure planning manager Barry Sugden in a release. “In the few weeks that the 15 kW array has been powering the site, there have been no issues.”
“Our goal for this project was to offset the high-cost of diesel with a low maintenance alternative energy and it is proving to be a success,” said Cold Climate innovation director, Stephen Mooney.
NorthwesTel currently maintains 156 microwave stations in its operation area. Of these sites, 87 rely on independent sources of power and 37 are only accessible by helicopter. These sites currently rely on air-cooled diesel engines depending for their energy needs.
NorthwesTel’s feasibility study suggests that the use of solar-diesel hybrid stations could reduce the Bell subsidiary's base energy costs in some locations by more than 80%.
