海角社区官网

more solar power than the rest of the world combined and is slated to hook up this year than have ever been installed in the U.S.

Globally, the amount of electricity generated from the sun is set to triple over the next five years, surpassing coal to become the in the world.

鈥淪olar is the way that we scale energy to make a sustainable civilization. It鈥檚 the one way that you can truly get all the power you could possibly need,鈥� said Joshua Pearce, a professor of engineering at Western University who studies innovative uses of solar panels.

鈥淭here鈥檚 really no reason that we shouldn鈥檛 be doing it everywhere at this point. It makes economic sense. It鈥檚 good for the environment. It looks cool.鈥�

In Canada, by more than 25 per cent last year, almost entirely by adding large solar farms in rural Alberta. But smaller-scale, rooftop solar projects also have incredible potential to generate renewable electricity right where it is used: in urban centres.

Israel recently announced a law requiring all new non-residential buildings to install solar panels on their roofs.

What if 海角社区官网did the same?

Even in a northern climate, where solar panels produce very little between October and March, Toronto鈥檚 rooftops are an incredible untapped resource.

Collectively, they could provide six gigawatts of power 鈥� about one sixth of all generation currently installed in Ontario, according to an analysis by , part of the city鈥檚 environment and climate division. That鈥檚 enough to power 800,000 homes.

City hall has declared its intention for the entire city to be carbon neutral by 2040 and will need a lot of renewable energy to get there. Currently there are 2,280 rooftop solar installations in Toronto, with a capacity of about 110 megawatts 鈥� less than two per cent of our potential.

The city plans to more than quadruple its current roster of 100 solar projects on public buildings by 2030. But that won鈥檛 be enough.

What if some of the most famous buildings in 海角社区官网were covered in panels, providing a visible declaration of a commitment to addressing the climate crisis?

The Star worked with SolarTO to assess the potential of 10 iconic 海角社区官网buildings for solar energy.

Rogers Centre

Perhaps the most iconic roof in the city, the Rogers Centre has a massive potential for solar power. According to an analysis by the city of Toronto鈥檚 SolarTO division, its domed roof could support more than 6,000 panels and generate enough electricity to power 350 households.

Unlike many roofs in the downtown core, the Rogers Centre roof has hardly any shade from adjacent buildings. So those panels would operate effectively through most of the summer 鈥� unless the dome is open for a 海角社区官网Blue Jays game.

Even the curved roof wouldn鈥檛 pose much of a problem, as the newest solar panels still produce copious amounts of electricity even if they鈥檙e not optimally oriented toward the sun.

Typical glass and aluminum solar panels would likely interfere with the opening and closing of the roof, so the Jays might want to consider thin-film solar modules that are both flexible and can be installed to stick onto the roof directly.

Panels on the dome could be a showcase for the energy transition, said James Nowlan, executive director of environment and climate at the city.

鈥淪olar is going to play a critical role in getting us to net zero,鈥� he said, adding the city wants to have 14 times more solar on its rooftops by 2030.

鈥淭here鈥檚 potential to add quite a bit of renewable capacity (that) supports broader electrification in home heating, vehicle transportation and everything else. Solar has the potential to really play a role in actually ensuring that clean energy is there for all of these other actions.鈥�

Enercare Centre

A far more traditional candidate for solar, the Enercare Centre has one of downtown Toronto鈥檚 largest roofs at almost 500,000 square feet (that鈥檚 more than 10 acres) and could host a massive solar array of more than 11,500 panels, producing enough power for 726 homes.

This would dwarf Canada鈥檚 largest existing rooftop solar installation, which sits atop another cavernous building for hosting conventions, . That project, completed last November, has 5,754 panels and produces enough electricity to power 375 homes.

According to SolarTO, the Enercare Centre is an ideal solar candidate because of its flat roof with no obstructions and minimal shade from nearby buildings. Paired with batteries, the panels could provide half the power the facility consumes annually. This carbon-free electricity could be a marketing boon for conventions that want to be carbon neutral.

Because the panels would continue to produce electricity during extended power outages, a solar installation would enable the Enercare Centre to serve as an emergency shelter, said Matthew Sachs, chief strategy officer at Peak Power, a company working on innovative ways to modernize the electricity grid.

鈥淩emember (Hurricane) Katrina? The stadiums were used for emergency shelter. Imagine if the stadiums had solar panels on them, then you鈥檇 be able to have power. It can create a very compelling resiliency benefit, especially if you鈥檙e worried about more extreme weather events,鈥� he said.

Solar on the Enercare Centre might even help downtown 海角社区官网avoid a blackout by providing electricity locally when a major powerline goes down, or a , like several did in Texas this summer.

The Royal Ontario Museum

The Royal Ontario Museum is a hybrid of two architectural styles, a neo-Byzantine main building, built in the early 20th century, and a 鈥渄econstructivist鈥� crystal added in the early 21st century. Both could hypothetically support solar arrays, though the old building is a designated heritage property, which could present issues for installing panels.

Nevertheless, the ROM could support more than 2,000 panels spread over its various roofs, and produce enough energy for 100 homes.

Because solar panels produce the most power during the hottest summer days, they act like nature鈥檚 peaker plants, providing electricity when the provincial electricity grid is straining under peak demand for air conditioning. Rooftop solar can effectively take a building off the grid, powering the A/C, saving the building owners money and freeing up grid power for others, said Shamor Paul, co-founder of Sunly, a solar installer.

鈥淭hat is a really nice feature because, unlike a (natural gas) peaker plant, which gets turned on and turned off when those peak times happen, solar panels just happen to produce at peak times,鈥� said Paul. 鈥淎t night, when everyone鈥檚 demand drops, solar panels are offline. So again, it coincides with that too.鈥�

Union Station

While also being a heritage building, Union Station has extra potential for solar over the train tracks that run immediately south of the Great Hall. That area is now covered by a transparent glass train shed, part of the extensive renovations the transportation hub has undergone over the last 15 years.

Transparent and semi-transparent solar panels 鈥� developed for greenhouses 鈥� could be installed over the glass roof that would still allow natural light down onto the platforms. While shade from the new towers in the south core would limit sunlight over the tracks, combined with panels on the main building, the system would still be big enough to power 200 households, according to the SolarTO analysis.

After it鈥檚 built, this solar installation would produce free energy every year for decades, providing stability and predictability, and buffering electricity rates from global fossil fuel markets, said Peak Power鈥檚 Matthew Sachs.

鈥淩enewable energy generally is one of these great win-win-win scenarios,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou can get cost savings, you can get resiliency benefits, but you also get these political benefits, like energy security, which allows you to not be vulnerable to rises in fuel costs or the impacts of inflation or wars.鈥�

Zoo parking lot

One place there鈥檚 lots of space for panels in 海角社区官网is parking lots. The city estimates there are more than , taking up more than 7,400 acres of space (though it鈥檚 unclear what proportion of these are surface lots appropriate for solar installations).

Putting panels over parking lots not only provides shade in the summer and keeps snow off in the winter, but as electric vehicles sales soar, they could power EV chargers directly from the sun. Earlier this year, France mandated that .

The three parking lots at the 海角社区官网Zoo have huge solar potential. Combined, they could support more than 25,000 panels, producing more than 10 gigawatt hours of electricity 鈥� enough to power almost 1,200 households year round, according to the SolarTO analysis.

One problem is that this installation is too big, and would likely produce more power than the zoo needs, and it would have to feed surplus electricity into the grid. Current regulations, however, limit how much you can feed back into the grid, creating a barrier to more widespread adoption, said Chris Caners, general manager of SolarShare, a co-operative that invests in solar installations.

鈥淵ou鈥檙e limited in the net-metering system,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou can only generate as much as you use in a year. If you only need 100 kilowatts on average and you have enough space to put in 500 kilowatts, then you鈥檙e limiting that opportunity.鈥�

Other jurisdictions, like Alberta, allow virtual net metering, where people who don鈥檛 have enough roof space can get together to install panels on another, bigger roof. The energy produced by those panels offsets their energy use at home.

鈥淩ight now we don鈥檛 have the ability to do that. But that鈥檚 something we鈥檙e interested in having the government explore,鈥� said Caners.

TTC Greenwood Yard

One way to get around the limitations of net metering in Ontario is to put solar panels where there is already significant demand for electricity.

The TTC鈥檚 Greenwood Yard, located just off the Danforth, is both a repair shop and a parking lot for all the subway trains on Line 2. It鈥檚 also a huge open space that could accommodate panels both on the roofs of the buildings and over the tracks, much like the parking lots at the zoo. The difference is that the subway trains need a lot of electricity to run.

According to SolarTO modelling, the Greenwood Yard buildings could host almost 5,500 panels and power 325 homes 鈥� . The adjacent tracks could accommodate an additional 14,000, boosting the power output to more than seven megawatts 鈥� enough for 1,150 homes.

This electricity could be used not only to heat and cool the large repair shops on site, but it could also be fed right into the tracks to power the trains themselves, alleviating the grid and freeing up that power for others.

鈥淔rom generation to transmission to distribution to the individual consumer, that鈥檚 a long way to go,鈥� said Richard Lu, CEO of SolarBank and a former executive at 海角社区官网Hydro. 鈥淭he wires are highways for electrons. If you take trucks off the road, it becomes less congested for others.鈥�

海角社区官网City Hall

Toronto鈥檚 modernist architectural wonder is perhaps not the most obvious candidate for solar. The tops of the towers aren鈥檛 very big and the roof of the council chamber between is heavily shaded.

But the iconic curved walls of the two towers could play host to a new generation of photovoltaic panels, called , that can be installed vertically on the exterior walls of a tower.

St. Mary鈥檚 University in Halifax recently replaced the that will insulate the building and provide about half its power.

鈥淥ne of the key things I like about solar is that it can be used almost anywhere. Because it is a distributed resource it means that (virtually) anyone can generate electricity. We don鈥檛 need to rely on huge companies,鈥� said SolarShare鈥檚 Caners.

鈥淚 love the idea that we can democratize energy in that way 鈥� Solar is amazing because it is the only power generating technology that can be (feasibly) deployed at the household level.鈥�

Amazon warehouse

The ideal candidate for solar is the opposite of an iconic building. Toronto鈥檚 real potential to build out rooftop solar comes from the anonymous warehouses that line the major highways and cluster in the industrial areas of town.

Their ample size, flat roofs and location, away from tall buildings that cast shade, makes warehouses the ideal hosts for solar installations. The fact that they tend to have large energy consumption as well means the economic case is strong as well.

Perhaps the single best roof for solar in the city is the Amazon Fulfillment Centre in Scarborough. With a roof of nearly 100,000 square metres, it could handle more than 25,000 panels and produce enough power for more than 1,600 homes. A solar project here would be so large, it is projected to produce nearly two per cent of all grid-scale solar power generated in the province.

鈥淧rivate investments in solar and batteries are being made available for the public good,鈥� said Fidel Reijerse, president of RESCo Energy, a solar project builder and operator.

鈥淭he immediate benefit is to the person that put them up. But the aggregate benefit is to the public system, which is getting services that benefit everyone while avoiding the costs of large generation and transmission projects.鈥�

According to , if half the available roofs in 海角社区官网were covered in panels 鈥� about three gigawatts worth 鈥� it would save the grid $250 million by reducing the amount paid to natural gas plants to meet summer peak demand, and by reducing the need to build more expensive nuclear generation.

Sherway Gardens

The roofs of malls have also emerged as good candidates for solar.

, but didn鈥檛 blanket the entire roof and ended up with an installation that was only able to power the mall鈥檚 lighting for three months of the year.

Because mall roofs tend to be broken up into different levels and have many obstructions, including rooftop air conditioning units and other vents, they can be more complicated to cover with solar panels, said the analysts at SolarTO. But covering their vast surrounding parking lots could make up for this.

Sherway Gardens Mall roof could handle about 13,000 panels and produce enough energy for 815 households. The surrounding parking lots would add up to 15,000 more panels, producing enough power for an additional 850 households.

鈥淢alls are great opportunities because of the public parking infrastructure,鈥� said Peak Power鈥檚 Matthew Sachs.

All that electricity could power fast chargers for EVs that shoppers park when they arrive. But if those chargers were bi-directional, the EVs could act as batteries for the solar power, charging up and then feeding it back into the grid to power the mall at peak times.

That way, instead of paying for parking, or a charge, 鈥�your vehicles can earn money while you鈥檙e in the mall shopping,鈥� he said.

Ontario Science Centre

The Ontario Science Centre could use a rooftop solar array not only to power its exhibits, but to educate the public about how they work.

Imagine rooftop walking tours amid the rows of panels, or transparent inverters so you can see their inner workings.

The three main buildings could accommodate 3,800 panels and provide power for about 245 households, according to the SolarTO analysis.

These panels could also power an exhibit on the minerals and mining required to manufacture solar panels, which are often held up by renewable sceptics as a reason why they鈥檙e not environmentally friendly.

Unlike lithium-ion batteries and wind turbines, however, solar panels are simple, solid-state devices made entirely of minerals that are abundant in the earth鈥檚 crust (and recyclable), said Western University鈥檚 Joshua Pearce.

鈥淭he vast majority of solar cells on the market today are made of silicon,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e are definitely not going to run out of silicon.鈥�

While most analyses assume solar panels have a lifespan of 20 years, that鈥檚 really just their manufacturer鈥檚 guarantee, Pearce said. In reality, solar panels lose about half a per cent of efficiency per year, meaning they still operate at 90 per cent efficiency after 20 years.

鈥淭he reason that most modules get taken down now is not because they don鈥檛 work, it鈥檚 actually to put in more efficient ones,鈥� Pearce said.

鈥� With data analysis by Andrew Bailey