A Foothills village blew the competition away with electrifying results in an energy-saving competition last month.
Longview placed first in the FortisAlberta Earth Hour Challenge March 25 from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. among 28 other Alberta communities.
The village reduced its energy consumption by 31 per cent from the same hour seven days earlier. The village of Barons placed second with a 13 per cent reduction and the town of Mayerthorpe placed third with an 11 per cent reduction.
“It’s a pretty significant change,” said Longview chief administrative officer Dale Harrison.
“We can accomplish things when we work together. It wasn’t just one person turning off the lights.”
This was the first year Longview participated in the Earth Hour Challenge. Village staff posted information about it in a newsletter that went out in residents’ utility bills last month and posters were placed around the community.
On the day of the challenge, Mayor Kathie Wight encouraged residents via Facebook to turn off their lights and several complied, said Harrison.
“I’ve been hearing stories from some of the staff and other people that they turned off their lights and forced their kids to stumble around in the dark,” he laughed.
“They had to learn how to operate using a flashlight.”
Being a community of about 300 people made it easy to get the word out, said Harrison.
“We have a bit of an advantage being a smaller community,” he said. “There are less people to motivate so it might be easier for us to get a response.”
The Village will receive a $5,000 grant to create or enhance energy efficiencies in the community.
“We are looking at potential upgrades in our office and other energy efficient projects for the community,” said Harrison.
He said he would like to see the Village’s facilities become more energy efficient.
“We are moving more and more into an environmental awareness,” he said. “We are in the process with Fortis of looking at doing LED streetlights in the next little while. They are going to change all of the streetlights eventually in the province to LED.”
The Village is also exploring the use of solar energy for its facilities.
“Solar has been around for a while but the technology is improving,” he said. “Solar panels now have more power per square footage.
“You can reduce your expenses and that’s part of our plan for our solar is to offset what the Village pays for electricity for streetlights and all the different venues we have power at to offset with our own generation so we are revenue neutral.”
Natasha Russell, FortisAlberta corporate communications advisor, said this year’s Earth Hour Challenge had the highest numbers of communities participate.
“We are happy that communities are more aware and are eager to participate and contribute to increasing awareness around saving energy and helping the environment in whatever way they can,” she said.
Russell said this is the last year for FortisAlberta’s Earth Hour Challenge.
Instead, municipalities can apply for $1,000 to $3,000 Save Energy grants for energy efficiency initiatives.
Russell expects FortisAlberta will have at least $10,000 in grants each year.
“We will still support Earth Hour, but in a different way,” she said. “We will provide information rather than host a challenge. We’ve been doing it for several years and it’s been fun but we like to change things up to keep things fresh and new and exciting.”
FortisAlberta.com contains information, resources and videos to help people learn how to save energy at home.
