Quesnel Recreation Centre Basking In Solar Glory

Municipal grants make solar hot water install an easy choice

Solar panels on roof of Quesnel rec centre

The City of Quesnel is singing the sun’s praises after installing a solar hot water system in their Recreation Centre, for their domestic hot water use within the facility. With a dozen solar panels on the roof they’re soaking up the winter sunshine that, according Facility Manager Gary Stuart, is a lot more powerful than he initially assumed.

“I just finished a tour up to the roof. It’s minus 25 out and we’re bringing in 150 degree water!” he says, adding that the Director of Recreation Facilities for the Cariboo was equally amazed by the high temperatures.

The city decided on the hot water system for their domestic water use, from showers to sinks, as part of a whole energy retrofit to make the building more Eco-friendly.

What began as a heat retrofit with new boilers and a heat pump developed into a solar hot water system at the suggestion of a solar project. They received a grant from the municipal rural infrastructure, and then found other grants available for the solar hot water system.

“Then SolarBC came to us and matched that amount,” said Stuart. “So it worked out well for us.”

While it’s too soon to crunch the numbers, Stuart is confident in the savings they’ll see. “I’m totally impressed,” he says. “I was new to solar but I learned it’s based on sunlight not temperature. So when you look outside on a day like today it looks like 100 degrees – and it is, on top of our building.”

The system was installed by SolarBC registered installers, Taylor Munro. “We’ve installed a hybrid system,” says Jim Groenewoud, with Coral Engineering, who worked with Taylor Munro during the install. The dehumidification reclaim system means that when the sun is out, the solar hot water tank is in use but on very cloudy days it’s augmented by reclaimed heat from the air stream and from the pool.

As for what Stuart hopes to see come out of the solar hot water retrofit? More solar panels of course. “I’d like to get the whole roof full of panels,” he says. “It’s basically free heat and compared to the cost of a boiler and heat exchanger – hands down it’s way cheaper.”