Kelowna Shines During Solar Days

Family fun with kids solar car races and solar bus tours

Kelowna’s residents saw their city in a new ‘light’ during the BC Solar Days events - from solar race car races to a solar bus tour of the city that showcased some of Kelowna’s most inspirational ‘green’ buildings.

Celebrating the power of the sun, local schools competed in solar car races at the EECO Centre at Mission Creek Regional Park during the Mayor’s Environmental Expo, happening the same time at Mission Creek Regional Park. Classes competed against each other in two events: the fastest time and a head-to-head elimination playoff.

Kelowna also held Solar Bus tours, chauffeing members of the public to residential, commercial and municipal installs to gain first-hand experiences from people using solar hot water, and to get an up-close look at how different systems work. People on the tour received fun giveaways from SolarBC, as well as energy-saving giftpacks for the home from FortisBC.

"Solar Days went exceptionally well," says Elena Westers, who organized the bus tour. "We honestly thought that we might get 2-3 people on the solar bus tour...but the weather worked in our favour - a little gloomy - and we had 33 people show up for the first tour! Almost a totally full school bus."

Westers says that overall there was excellent feedback with a few people coming up to her at the end saying they hoped to do something like this again and were appreciative of the tour. She added that everyone left with small gift packs from FortisBC and SolarBC. "Also, it was quite fun to see adults being kids for one day - when it got toward the end of the tour I was handing out juice boxes and granola bars," said Westers of the ride back on the school bus. "It was really fun."

For more pictures of Solar Days visit the SolarBC Flickr photo gallery