Red Deer Solar Assessments for Industrial and Commercial Buildings

Red Deer is the third-largest city in Alberta, with 100,844 people in the 2021 census, on the Red Deer River midway along the Calgary-Edmonton corridor. Its key industries include health care, retail, construction, oil and gas, hospitality, manufacturing and education. Industrial areas include Riverside, Edgar, Chiles, Northlands and Queens Business Park, and Red Deer Polytechnic and Westerner Park are among the larger institutions.

For a solar advisor, the industrial areas are the main interest: warehouses, shops, distribution buildings and light industrial units with large flat roofs and long hours. Steady daytime lighting is the best match. Operations with large motors, compressors or welding create short peaks that drive demand charges, and solar does little for those.

Winters are long and cold, with average annual snowfall around 138 cm, so we size against a full year of use and production rather than a summer month.