Town of Raymond a leader in energy transition
The Town of Raymond is no longer simply the home of Canada’s first rodeo, but also a municipal leader in Alberta’s energy transition.
Located 35 kilometres southeast of Lethbridge and home to 4,252 residents, Raymond is primarily an agricultural town, but Raymond’s town council and its CAO, Kurtis Pratt, are continually looking for ways to make Raymond stand out as an innovative community leader.
Combined with concerns about the forecasted market increase in electricity prices, generating their own renewable electricity seemed like the perfect way to show leadership in environmental protection while also buffering the town from rising energy costs. When council learned about rebates available through the Alberta Municipal Solar Program in 2018, they were spurred into action.
“This decision by council to become one of the first municipalities in Alberta to become electrically net-zero was made with the future in mind. It provides us budgetary certainty regardless of the geopolitical and market factors outside of our control and allows us to stretch our limited resources further than we could before.” - Kurtis Pratt, CAO, Town of Raymond.
They decided to install nine solar PV arrays on municipal facilities and land, accessing $643,481 in funding from the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre. Before rebates, the system cost was $2,781,923. The 2,983 modules installed have a total capacity of 1.16 Megawatts and are expected to produce 1,302 MWh of electricity per year.
“Partnering with the MCCAC and the solar contractor has been a positive experience for our community. Both organizations were extremely professional and worked collaboratively to reduce the amount of time and staff resources we had to give to complete the project.” - Kurtis Pratt, CAO, Town of Raymond.
This project will offset 100% of Raymond’s operations’ annual electricity use and provide an estimated annual savings of $130,186. Most recently, three municipal staff from the Town of Raymond also won awards for their amazing work on becoming Canada’s first electrically net-zero municipality in its operations. Read more about their project in the MCCAC project showcase.
