Using the right combination of solar and wind energy could prove an optimal strategy for Canadian cities aiming to reduce energy costs during climate change, according to new University of Alberta research.
Mechanical engineering professor Lexuan Zhong and co-author You Wu found that hybrid wind/solar energy systems could reduce future energy costs by more than 40 per cent — compared with wind-only systems, which do not generally reduce costs except in windy cities like Halifax and Saint John — as the global temperature rises from 1 C to 3.5 C.
Solar-only systems show stronger promise than wind-only, however, and technological advances are expected to further reduce costs by five to 20 per cent across all energy strategies.
“Hybrid supply strategies consistently offer the best balance of economic viability and resilience in current and future periods, while the optimal single-resource strategy remains highly dependent on local solar or wind resource availability,” write the study’s authors.
Their modelling accounts for variables including climate projections, human behaviour, community prototypes and market dynamics. It predicts that solar and hybrid systems are optimal for Edmonton, Montreal, Saskatoon, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg, whereas wind and hybrid systems are preferable in Halifax and Saint John.