Solar panels on the roof above Coast Salish Elementary's gymnasium will help the Coquitlam school reduce carbon emissions by 49 metric tonnes annually.
Kids learn about sunshine and heat pumps at Coquitlam's first 'green' school
Part of a series on BC Hydro Clean Energy Champions: businesses, homes, and institutions – large and small – recognized for reducing their reliance on fossil fuels.
Imagine a day when we all know exactly how much electricity we're using and where it's coming from.
At Coast Salish Elementary, that day has arrived. The Coquitlam School District's first green school isn't just equipped with an assortment of systems that minimize the use of fossil fuels – including an electric air-to-water heat pump as their primary source of heat – it also provides real-time information about what's happening on a south-facing section of roof above the school gymnasium.
"We have some teachers who like to have fun using My Solar Edge, a monitoring app for solar panels," says Coast Salish principal Frank Pearse. "Teachers and students can see, in real time, the energy being captured by our solar array."
Students in Grade 4 and 5 classes located in the upper wing of the school enjoy premium viewing.
"They can look out the classroom window and see the sun hitting the solar panels," says Pearse, who counts himself a big fan of anything that leads to experiential learning in the classroom. "And then five minutes later, on the app's graph in the classroom, they watch the energy capture go up."
That's not the only thing students are monitoring. They're also using online MyHydro tools – similar to the home energy tracking graphs customers have access to for their homes – to monitor peaks and valleys in energy use at the school.
For the school district, those learning experiences are a value add. At the core of the school's green schools strategy is the use of clean energy – be it from our electrical grid or from solar power – to rely on technologies to reduce carbon emissions to as close to net zero as possible. Coast Salish Elementary nearly reach net zero on a sunny day last spring, and it's projected the school's energy systems will save about 49 metric tonnes of carbon emissions annually.
That's like taking 11 gas-powered cars off the road.
Coquitlam School District's first green school isn't just about solar generation. Efficient technologies include a hybrid air-to-water heat pump and a rooftop air handling unit that supplies conditioned air to the school gym.
'It wouldn't be a good business case if BC Hydro didn't help'
Coquitlam School District's energy manager Adrian Pettyfer stresses that the district is designing and building schools to be as carbon neutral as possible while at the same time being financially responsible. Additional costs required to build a low carbon school are funded in part through incentives provided through BC Hydro and the CleanBC incentive programs. In Coast Salish's case CleanBC provided funding to offset 40% of the incremental cost of installing a heat pump, which limits the use of gas-fired boilers for heating.
"There has to be a financial payback for us, as well as a social motivation to reduce our carbon footprint" says Pettyfer. "We're always looking for ways to better reduce our energy costs and our GHG emissions. We see great savings by managing our electrical load – to avoid peak demand charges. But with current rates, installing heat pumps over boilers and adding solar generation wouldn't be a responsible investment if BC Hydro didn't come up with incentives funding to help us."
Opened in 2023, Coast Salish relies on a variety of technologies that deliver efficiency, building comfort, and emissions reductions:
- A hybrid air-to-water heat pump, with backup high-efficiency gas-fired boilers using 100% renewable natural gas. The water loop in the school supplies heated water to hydronic unit ventilators in the classrooms.
- A rooftop air handling unit with hydronic heating coils supplies conditioned air to the gymnasium, incorporating demand control ventilation.
- The installed air-to-water heat pump can function as an electric boiler for heating, and an air-cooled chiller for cooling.
- A 52 kW solar PV array on the gymnasium roof is expected to provide enough electricity to power all school lighting.
The district pays a premium for renewable natural gas from FortisBC for use in the backup boiler that only comes on at Coast Salish when outside temperatures dip below 5°C and the school's heat pump becomes less efficient.
"Over the past 10 years, we've slowly introduced heat pumps into all of our new builds so that we can reduce our GHG emissions," says Pettyfer. "But this is our first school which has a solar array on it. So we've gone from conserving electricity and reducing emissions to the actual generation of power."
Solar power is on trial, but 'it's looking positive'
The Coquitlam district has already included solar arrays in the design of its next two schools: a replacement school for Moody Elementary and a new high school on Burke Mountain. They're also looking at solar as a possibility for another replacement school, Montgomery Middle, and with funding assistance from BC Hydro, they're working with an engineering firm on a feasibility study to install a large solar array – potentially double the size of the one at Coast Salish – on Terry Fox Secondary.
"I suppose that we can say that this solar array at Coast Salish Elementary was a test, but it's looking positive," says Pettyfer. "We recognize that we need to embrace it, particularly if it provides a decent return on investment. And in conjunction with the solar, we're looking at battery storage for future projects to manage our demand charges and to assist BC Hydro's electrical generation ability."
Student sustainability leaders are 'going to take care of us'
Pettyfer says he admires what Coast Salish principal Pearse is doing to learn how exactly his school's energy systems work and to integrate energy education into the elementary school. He calls Pearse a clean energy champion in his own right.
The principal himself says he's not exactly an environmentalist, even if he did try valiantly to help resurrect a decommissioned geothermal heat pump at his former school, Seaview Community School. He confirms, however, that his son Campbell, a Grade 12 student at Port Coquitlam's Riverside Secondary, is clearly taking things to the next level.
Campbell is part of Riverside's green team and is a member of the Coquitlam District's Sustainability Leadership Council (DSL). Pettyfer meets regularly with the DSL, which is an engaged and passionate group of secondary students from all eight secondary schools in the district. Pettyfer says that working with this group and leaders like Campbell has made him more confident in our future.
"I'm telling you, there's a band of them who are going to take care of us," says Pettyfer. "They are going to figure this out. I don't mean they're going to figure out how to stop climate change. I mean they're going to figure out how to live through climate change, if nothing else. They're going to figure out how to make that heat pump run below -15°C, and they are going to find affordable replacements to fossil fuels."