Green Energy

Green or Renewable Energy is energy obtained from natural resources that can be naturally replenished or renewed within a human lifespan, that is, the resource is a sustainable source of energy. As I teach in my Green Technologies course at KPU, the Big 5 Renewable Energy sources are Solar, Wind, Hydro/Water, Geothermal and Biomass.  See more details on the Natural Resources Canada website here.

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) 

Photons from the sun hit the solar PV panel and excite the electrons to move, creating current that can be sent down wires to an electrical panel.  The best thing is that these panels have no moving parts, so operating costs are very low and they keep producing electricity for more than 40 years.

Solar panels covering less than 1% of the land surface area would be required to satisfy all humanity energy needs and the land under these solar panels can be farmed at the same time.  Solar PV costs have come down by about 90% over the last 15 years and it is now cheaper than fossil fuel energy is almost every part of the world.  The above picture shows the 30 kW solar array on top of the Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Association in Calgary that we supported and below are a couple of pictures of Ventures Green solar PV installs.

Wind Energy

Large Utility scale wind turbines are typically about 100 metres in height and 1MW to 25 MW in size.  Small Wind generators range from 400 watts to 8kW.  These are typically horizontal axis wind turbines but there are also small vertical axis wind turbines that are starting to become popular in cities.

Hydro/Water Energy:

60% of Canada’s electricity comes from Hydro power with over 98% hydro power in BC, Manitoba and Quebec.  Most of this comes from large hydro dams like the new Site C dam in Northern BC but there are other options like tidal and micro run-of-river hydro.

Geothermal Power

Did you know that as of 2025 there are still no geothermal power plants in Canada?  Iceland pretty much runs on geothermal power and many other places like Europe, Africa and the US have many geothermal power projects already producing clean power using the heat from the core of the earth.  Geologically Western Canada is the best place for Geothermal power in Canada and there are a half dozen projects working their way through the approval process.  Alberta is like a pin cushion with hundreds of thousands of holes already drilled to produce oil and gas.  Many wells produce more hot water than they do oil or gas.  Many of these wells can produce water at more than 80 deg C which is all that is needed to produce power at the surface.  

      Geo-Exchange Heating and Cooling (Not power)

Geo-Exchange or ground source heat pumps are able to heat and cool buildings just using the constant temperature of the ground which exists 10 feet or more below the surface.  Notice that this will not produce power but it can easily heat and cool a building.   We completed a geo-exchange system for a cabin in 2002 and it is still running with a bit of electricity every month.  We drilled 3 holes (350 ft deep) to provide heating and cooling for this 7 bedroom cabin.  The system uses BC Hydro electricity to circulate the glycol but it costs less than $50 per month.   The other option was buying about $6,000 per year of propane to heat and cool this cabin.  There is no natural gas pipelines in the Invermere, BC area.  This system has already paid for itself twice over.

Biomass

Biomass is the burning of organic materials like wood pellets, or switch grass to make electricity and/or heat.  The 2.8 MW Lethbridge, AB Biogas plant collects manure from nearby cattle feedlots to produce electricity for the grid.  The manure anaerobically breaks down in tanks to produce methane that is burned to produce electricity.  A slum called Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya has more than 60 biogas toilet centers that convert methane from human waste into cooking fuel.  Bio-fuels in the form of a liquid such as ethanol, algae or renewable diesel fuels are also considered to be a biomass source of energy.