In keeping with its dedication to sustainability, the Town of Black Diamond is pursuing an audit to determine how much energy it consumes and identify means to become more energy efficient.
At its Nov. 2 meeting, council voted to apply for a feasibility grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which can be used for an energy audit.
“We want to move ahead in a direction where we can gather the baseline data with the energy audit… get a baseline indicator and then find ways to reduce our energy consumption,” said Black Diamond Mayor Sharlene Brown after the meeting.
Council has been discussing the idea of an audit of the energy the Town’s infrastructure consumes and some of its committees have been closely looking at the consumption levels, she said.
If the Town doesn’t receive the grant, it will still pursue the audit, she noted, while other grants are also available.
“The grant’s just going to be a bonus,” she said.
The Town recently started to investigate quotes for the cost of an energy audit, and Brown said she hasn’t seen any yet. She said she didn’t think the Town had ever had an energy audit before and believes quite a few communities in Alberta have had them done.
“It’s just one of the pieces that we want to use to be able to say what are we using right now and what can we be looking at in the future to reduce our energy consumption as far as Town facilities go.”
Next year, the municipality will focus on upgrading the Town office to be more energy efficient using alternative energy sources, which could potentially include a solar power system, she said. Small changes have already been done to make the building’s electricity consumption more efficient, lower costs and minimize its carbon footprint.
The Town of Black Diamond has worked to reduce energy consumption at the Oilfields Arena by implementing energy efficient lighting, and creating wind turbines and solar power systems on the roof to help provide power for the arena, she added.
The Town’s parks and recreation manager, Les Quinton, was recently awarded an Alberta Urban Municipalities Association sustainability award for the projects he spearheaded at the arena and around town to reduce the consumption of power, gas and water and save money.
Quinton said he supported the idea of an energy audit and had one done at the arena about 10 years ago. He said he is looking at doing another audit at the arena in the next couple of years, as he is always looking for new ideas to increase efficiency, but the Town office is more of a priority as not as much work has been done there.
