Green Doers |
Almost everybody talks about making the switch to an environmentally sustainable economy. These Albertans are actually doing it
by Michael McCullough & Stephanie Sparks
Erhard Hermann
Co-Owner, Boyd Solar Corp.
Didsbury
For a province known for its snow and chilly winters, Alberta sure gets its fair share of sun. That’s why renewable energy company Boyd Solar Corp. in Didsbury is taking advantage of the blue skies. Boyd installs solar electric and thermal systems in all kinds of buildings, new and used, allowing its customers to live completely off the grid – just like co-owner, master electrician and chief designer Erhard Hermann, who helped to grow Boyd out of his electric contracting company, Erhard’s Electric.
AV: How did Erhard’s Electric turn into Boyd Solar?
Erhard Hermann: One of my customers started inquiring about renewable energy. I started looking into it and I got interested myself. At that point, I decided to go totally off-grid and use the products here on my own home and shop. We decided to enter a renewable energy market initially because of the void that we saw in providing quality system design, integration, insulation and service by knowledgeable and quality-oriented tradespeople that actually owned and lived with renewable energy systems and understood them. We felt this was really critical in order to properly design the systems and serve our customers well. After having been established in the renewable energy sector for some time, we’ve continued on with a name that more accurately reflects what we do… the solar more so than just the electrical.
What distinguishes your company?
As a company that is involved in renewable energy, we did not want to be using a coal-fired electrical grid to back us up and to bail us out, like so many others are doing. We decided right from day one that we are not going to be backed up by the electrical or the gas grid. All of our power and our heat was going to be from renewable energy, so we practise what we preach. For instance, the new shop we have is 100% solar heated, powered by solar electricity with no backup of any kind. It’s actually a true zero-emissions building.
What motivates you?
Being the best in providing solutions for difficult situations. We’re really a quality-motivated company. Energy is lost and emissions happen every time you manufacture a product, so if we can build a system to last 40 or more years, compared to a system that needs replacement in 10 or 15, that really is the best environmental choice and best investment for our customers.
What do you see for the future of Boyd Solar?
I expect we’re going to be doing a lot more in terms of consultation work to properly design buildings and integrate all of the electrical and mechanical systems.
What do you see for the future of other sustainable companies?
Really what we’ve found is that renewable energy is wrongly viewed as a simple, anybody-can-do-it business. We’ve seen a number of these three-day courses, and that’s just really dangerous because a lot of these small systems have been put in and they really aren’t up to electrical or plumbing codes. So we actually clean up a number of those jobs each year. Even though people have the good intentions of doing something, without the proper training and proper trades background, a lot of these companies hurt the reputation of the renewable energy industry. It is a new industry and it will likely become a lot more regulated in the future in order to protect the consumer.
