The Municipality of Argyle’s new administrative building will incorporate solar panels and geo-thermal energy and taxpayers will reap the savings.
The issue was discussed at length Tuesday night during a regular council meeting.
CAO Alain Muise says council made the decision to design the building to be “net zero”.
It means the total amount of energy used will be roughly equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site.
Muise says the final cost of construction could be close to $4 million, but could be a bit less.
“The project has changed quite a bit since we first considered doing it. We’re doing an approach to net zero which is an investment we have to make over and above what council had originally planned for an initial cost. However, that investment will be supported by….we’re expecting approximately $1.5 million to $1.6 million dollars worth of federal funds. That’s because council made the decision to go to net zero to do as efficient a building as could be constructed in this environment. The cost initially is a bit higher, but we will be asking our taxpayers to pay less, under the net zero option, from a capital perspective and also from an operating perspective because $26,000 a year will be saved over the life of the building.”
He says that translates into a savings for taxpayers of a total of $2.2 million dollars over the life of the building.
“Gas taxes will represent about $1.1 million of the $1.6 million we’re expecting in additional costs. There is another amount we’ve applied for, we’ve not yet received, we have a very strong application. It would include a federal grant and a low interest loan. We’re doing the best we can to be conscious of the environment and conscious of our taxpayers dollars. The big feature of a net zero is saving almost $2.2 million dollars over the life of the building by not paying electrical, heating and cooling costs that will invariably increase over time. Doing the net zero is a little bit more expensive in the beginning but extraordinarily less expensive to the taxpayers in the long-term. There’s two features to the net zero concept. One is to generate the energy as efficiently as possible and build a building as efficiently as you can which means more insulation and geo-thermal. The second part is, well, how are you going to attain that energy ? We’re going to use solar panels. It’s a lot more than we had initially planned, so of course a lot more investment up front. Essentially we will be connected directly to the grid. If we use more energy than solar allows us to use then we will have to dip into Nova Scotia Power, to the power grid. But the opposite is also true. We will have days when the solar will exceed the use of the building. The expectation is net zero, based on the plan and we could even be better than that.”
(CAO Alain Muise discusses new building at March 27 council meeting-CJLS News)
