Old Crow waiting to flip the switch on new solar array – CBC

COVID-19 pandemic slowed down project, so final phase expected next summer

Jul 20, 2020

Building a solar farm 127 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle is a challenge; building an array of solar panels on permafrost in a remote community is a small engineering feat.

The Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Old Crow, Yukon, is getting ready for phase one of a project that will see solar power running to the community’s grid by the end of the summer.

ATCO Electric owns the diesel power grid run by diesel generators. It will buy the solar energy, feed it into the power grid, and redistribute it to the community. But the process has taken longer than expected because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When it comes to the balancing of the different aspects of the microgrid to the battery, to the whole onset, it will take some time and this is a direct implication of the pandemic outbreak,” said Dana Tizya-Tramm, chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation.

Read More: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/old-crow-yukon-solar-power-array-1.5654514