City of New Westminster – Urban Solar Garden

As part of Ecolighten’s support for the City of New Westminster’s Energy Save New West program, we’re pleased to be helping the City explore the potential to develop an Urban Solar Garden.  In short, the Urban Solar Garden will be an accessible, less expensive alternative to individual rooftop installations, allowing local residents, businesses and non-profits long term access to solar energy “Made in New West for New West”.

The Urban Solar Garden will be a City-owned, centralized solar array.  Any New Westminster Electric Utility customer can participate by subscribing to a portion of the solar electricity generated by the array, on a per panel basis. The amount of energy generated by the Urban Solar Garden is then credited back to a subscriber’s electricity bills in proportion to their investment, for up to 25 years.

Inspired by the City of Nelson’s Community Solar Garden, this project will be the first municipally-led community solar PV initiative in Metro Vancouver with participation in the Urban Solar Garden being available to New Westminster Electric Utility customers on a voluntary basis.  The City is currently evaluating two (2) potential sites for the Urban Solar Garden, with an array that would range in size up to 50kW (approximately 200 panels). The array would feed into the local electricity grid and become part of the capital assets owned by New Westminster’s Electric Utility.  Subscribers would not own actual solar panels in the array itself, rather they would own a portion of the annual electrical generation from the PV system.

The Urban Solar Garden is being developed, marketed and managed by the City of New Westminster’s Energy Save New West program.  

For more information on Energy Save New West and the Urban Solar Garden visit energysavenewest.ca.