Black Diamond is joining forces with a rural county northeast of Calgary to further save the community money with its green initiatives.
The Town of Black Diamond and Starland County are applying for $70,000 through the Alberta Community Partnership Grant to cover the cost of developing Internet-based software that will allow municipalities to track and display solar production and sell carbon credits from their solar power systems.
Les Quinton, Black Diamond’s parks and recreation manager, said once the software is developed the hope is to have several southern Alberta municipalities join the program so they can receive maximum value for their solar power production.
“By ourselves we are very, very small,” he said. “If we start combining these systems it makes up quite a bit of a difference. If we can work together we could look at selling some of the carbon credits as a group and split it up.”
Quinton said carbon credits are awarded for large projects, but not municipalities like Black Diamond, which has solar panels mounted on the Oilfields Regional Arena and municipal office.
The web-based tool will be designed to report energy output from renewable energy sites in each participating community, track carbon credits and allow participants to market and sell carbon reductions in the private and public carbon offset markets to provide a further cost savings to offset each participant’s utility bills.
The software will also allow private residents to upload their solar data, sell their carbon own reductions and view their own information online.
Quinton said the Town of Black Diamond has been collaborating with Starland County on its green initiatives for years, and the idea came up as a way to further save money through energy-efficient initiatives.
Quinton said Starland County will be the leading partner in developing the software. The project is expected to take about six months to complete.
Black Diamond Mayor Sharlene Brown said the project is a great way to benefit financially for its carbon credit compensation.
“You are saving greenhouse gas emissions you can get turned into carbon credits,” he said. “If we don’t get the grant we will try something else.”
