Hot day, cold cravings: solar and ice cream a perfect match
A shout out to my local ice cream shop. I live in the Beach, a part of Toronto that local folks flood to in the summer to catch some rays, walk kilometres of boardwalk, play volleyball, suntan on vast stretches of Lake Ontario beachfront, and, of course, eat ice cream. It’s a very pleasant neighbourhood, and when it comes to ice cream, it is well served by Ed’s Real Scoop, an area landmark. Ed Francis, owner of the shop, decided recently that solar energy and ice cream were a match made in heaven. After all, business boomed when it was hot and the sun was shining, and that’s when solar panels are most productive. So he decided to have solar-thermal panels and solar PV panels installed above his shop, which supply hot water and simultaneously generate green electricity, which is sold onto the grid as part of Ontario’s feed-in-tariff program. Village Technologies and SolSmart Energy handled the install.
“People in the neighbourhood have started noticing the panels and are excited,” says Ed. “The publicity and buzz is great for my business, but even better is knowing that on sunny days more customers are coming in and I get all my hot water for free, plus (I’m) making additional revenues by selling electricity into the grid.”
Mmm… ice cream. Just wishing, as I write this, it wasn’t snowing outside.
Tags: Ed's Real Scoop
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
December 3rd, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Tyler
thanks for writing about this important project!
Toronto and Ontario have great opportunities in front of us to shift to a renewable energy economy – improving our economic and energy efficiency while making our businesses more profitable!
Soon, I’ll be sharing some info about how my clients who operate affordable housing have used insulation, geothermal and solar to improve their economic situation in maintaining social housing sites.
December 3rd, 2010 at 11:38 pm
LOL! It was 76 degrees here in Austin today, and the Ice Cream truck is still coming thru our neighborhood;-)