Sun power hits home
Community groups get together to buy home solar systems
Up-front costs, unfamiliarity remain barriers
Jun. 12, 2006. 06:37 AM
TYLER HAMILTON
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
There's a community movement emerging in Toronto, one that's poised to spread across the country as more citizens take control of their own electricity needs and do their part to tackle urban smog.
In the Riverdale, Leslieville, and Beaches communities, about 75 homeowners have banded together to make a bulk purchase of rooftop solar photovoltaic panels that will meet a portion of each home's power demands. Solera Sustainable Energies Co. won the contract and will begin installing the panels this week.
Across the city, in an area encompassing Parkdale, High Park, the Annex, and Seaton Village, a group of more than 150 homeowners has been similarly inspired and will soon invite interested solar companies to bid for their business. This grassroots project has caught the attention of the Harbord Village Residents Association, which is now considering its own bulk-purchase initiative.
"What we're hoping to do is replicate this in communities right across the country," says Jed Goldberg, president of environmental group Earth Day Canada and organizer of the west Toronto initiative. "We're getting two or three hundred up and going in Toronto, so why can't we get thousands of installations across the country?"
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