ATHABASCA – Solar panels on the Edwin Parr Composite (EPC) School’s roof are coming down, but Aspen View Public School trustees aren’t sure if they want to put them back up after needed repairs are completed.
Trustees discussed the scenario at their April 17 meeting after the division’s Secretary-Treasurer Amber Oko provided an update on the building’s roof, which is getting repaired at the tail end of its warranty period.
The panels were added when EPC was initially built, and aren’t covered by any warranty or insurance. Oko said the division was confident the panels hadn’t caused the damage to the roof, but replacing them was going to be costly for a product that wasn’t bringing in the expected returns.
The solar array was initially expected to last 25 years and was saving the division as much as $25,000 a year as recently as 2021, but the cost savings provided by the 780 panels didn't continue as expected.
Four options were presented to the board: they could opt to remove the panels and reinstall them once the repairs are complete for $250,000, they could simply remove the panels and not reinstall them for $45,000, or they could rent the roof space to a solar company who would sell the energy back at a reduced rate.
Trustees didn’t make a final decision on what they wanted to do moving forwards — the pressing issue was approving the panels removal so repair work could start — but with the panels only returning $6,700 in rebates a year, they voiced some concerns about paying to replace them.
“If it’s going to cost us a quarter-of-a-million dollars, even if it does bring back a little more than $6.700, it’s going to take us years and years to regenerate that cost that has been occurred. I don’t feel we have a quarter-million to spend on reattaching these panels,” said board chair Candy Nikipelo.
One option trustees discussed and discarded was replacing the roof-mounted system with a solar array on the ground. The costs for the project would have been exponentially higher — exact figures weren’t provided — and moving the panels into a more accessible location would increase the risk of vandalism and other damages.
“There’s set up, there’s also underground work that be required,” said Oko.
“Space is a concern; we have limited space because those fields aren’t ours.’
So far, AVPS has received less than $1,000 from the panels in 2025, although that is largely based on the time of year.
“It was so low we actually reached out to the provider to make sure it was still working.”
While the idea of renting out the roof space did come with benefits, trustees weren’t immediately sold on the idea.
“I’ve got a couple of concerns with a vendor using our roof as a solar farm, one of them being we’ve already heard of issues with having panels on the roof and accessing roof repairs,” said Trustee April Bauer.
“The building is ten years old and we know with our history that from now until the end of the life of the building we’ll be doing repairs on the roof. I’m not 100 per cent opposed to it, but I am concerned.”
Trustees voted unanimously to remove the panels in order to get repairs done, and to dispose of the panelling. The issue will be back before the board at the May 22 meeting.
