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Skeena Valley Golf Course goes green with LED panels

Step3Project helps co-op become more energy-efficient
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The Skeena Valley Golf Club had high-efficiency LED lights installed in their clubhouse, which will help save energy and money for the co-op. (Natalia Balcerzak/Terrace Standard)

The Skeena Valley Golf Course is looking a little greener — and no, it’s not the grass.

With a vision to promote renewable and green energy in the Terrace area, Step3Project installed 37 new high-efficiency LED panels to replace 102 old fluorescent lightbulbs in the clubhouse on Sept. 1.

Step3Project sells branded apparel to help fund their projects. Their aim is to crowdfunded renewable energy infrastructure for places that are inaccessible to a normal power grid or rely on fuel-powered generators.

“We’re looking to get the word out and show people that it is possible to make a difference even on a smaller scale,” Step3Project founder Tristian Walker says. “The idea with the project was to save them money on their electricity bill, but also to make them a more green building.”

Walker says this is their biggest project yet and by switching the lights at the Skeena Valley Golf Course, it will save them 2,000 watts per month which lowers their electricity cost by $1.50 per day or $40 monthly. Those savings from the now energy-efficient building will then go back to the co-op members.

“Anything I can do to help them, the money that they save is going to go right back into the community and benefit Terrace,” he says.

READ MORE: Crowdfunding clean energy infrastructure

Altogether, there were 310 branded items sold in the golf club’s shop, Step3Project’s website, at All Star Shoes and the Terrace visitor’s centre throughout the year and with help from Graydon Electric, they managed to raise enough funds to install the LED panels.

“It’s also a representation of how people can make a difference just through their small donations or how they can do little things to make a difference, for our world to be more green.”

Last year, his company completed their first project where they funded, designed and installed renewable energy for the Larsen Ridge Backcountry Ski Cabin southwest of Terrace, owned by the Mount Remo Backcountry Society. That project took 67 T-shirts to fund the solar panels for the cabin.

READ MORE: Environment champions want voters to make climate their main priority this fall

Growing up in the Terrace area and starting Step3Project up on his own in 2018, Walker says he wants people here to realize that becoming more green is possible and doesn’t have to be a difficult change.

“I think that a lot of people don’t think it’s feasible or it’s too expensive, so I think by bringing this project in gives people an avenue to kind of see how they can do it, “he says. “It shows people that it is possible, as opposed to just being an article they see on the internet.”

Although he will be attending Carleton University in Ottawa this year to pursue a master’s degree, he says he plans to return to the Northwest to continue working on more energy-efficient projects to benefit the area.


 


natalia@terracestandard.com

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