Solar Open House Draws Saanich Residents Out

It was a scorcher of a day for Saanich’s solar open house on Wednesday. The tented, outdoor event drew in a 200+ crowd, as people met and chatted with SolarBC installers from the Victoria area.

"We didn’t want to just have speakers - we've done that," says Mark Boysen, Sustainability Director for the District of Saanich. While the sunny day helped to encourage the turn-out, he thinks the format of the event added to its success. "Because our goal is based on residential installs, this connected homeowners a lot better."

The interactive approach of bringing people interested in solar hot water, and the companies that provide this service, proved to generate interest and created a more interactive experience for those who came out. Also the fact that it ran for half the day gave people an opportunity to come down when they had the time.

"People are busy," Mark says, simply. "So it was nice to see people show up through out the event and families with kids. We had a bit of food there and water, to keep everybody hydrated because it was so hot."

After a brief presentation by SolarBC and City Green Solutions, participants were able to walk from booth to booth and ask questions of the four installers: Island Energy, Pacific Solar Smart Homes, Ark Homeworks and Ambient Energy Solutions.

"We were busy until the end," says Johnny Thiessen, owner and operator of Ambient. "The people who came out were well educated, they’d done their research and knew what they wanted."

Based on the success of the day, Boysen says he would definitely recommend other Solar Communities to host their own mini trade-shows. "We can always explain the technology to people, but there’s an added benefit to bringing them face to face with those involved."