Joel Goldenberg – The Suburban LJI Reporter
St. Laurent Mayor Alan DeSousa called on the business community to create a large solar park in the borough, an electricity generating system connected to a utility grid.
DeSousa spoke Nov. 2 at the annual meeting of the Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Saint-Laurent-Mont-Royal. He also told La Presse such a park could be installed quickly, as opposed to dams and wind turbines.
DeSousa pointed out in his speech that 70 percent of St. Laurent’s territory is “dedicated to professional, retail, manufacturing and industrial activities, thus presenting a unique landscape in the Greater Montreal Region.”
He added that in 2019, “this led to the roofs on St. Laurent businesses and parking lots being identified as the two main culprits responsible for the major urban heat island phenomenon experienced in Saint-Laurent.”
DeSousa said the borough has worked to alleviate the heat island situation “by adopting a number of programs, bylaws and other initiatives relating to parking lots and roofs. These have generated numerous accolades in addition to creating a snowball effect in other communities.”
The Mayor also pointed out that an assessment conducted in 2018 “estimated the net surface area of some 1,400 industrial and commercial roofs is capable of accommodating solar panels in St. Laurent at 4.5 million square metres, or the equivalent of 850 football fields.”
Also in 2018, “a study was conducted to evaluate the overall potential of industrial roofs in St. Laurent to produce 521 gigawatts-hours of energy, which is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 24,000 households.
“The study concluded that St. Laurent has tremendous solar photovoltaic and thermal potential, and it is an ideal location for the installation of solar setups on roofs, given that the buildings are the same elevation and there are few trees in the areas in question. The same study also revealed that the installation of solar equipment would enable certain buildings to achieve partial energy independence. What’s more, the City of Montreal receives 25 percent more sunshine than Paris, boasting an annual average of 2,051 hours versus 1,662 hours for the European city.”
In light of all this and the existence of the Fermes Lufa greenhouse and IGA Duchemin greenhouses, DeSousa urged the business community to “consider the potential benefits of creating a collaborative project centred on solar energy,” pointing out that “several businesses have already begun experimentation in this respect.
“The pursuit of this solar park project could represent an excellent endeavour for the emergence of an urban solar segment in Quebec, while emphasizing that solar is just one of the solutions that can be developed on-site when it comes to renewable energy – and one that could also include the recovery of waste heat, cooling and geothermic.”