Small town of Lumsden leads Saskatchewan with solar‑powered WWTP

By David Nesseth

The scenic Town of Lumsden has achieved an innovative feat by becoming the most solar-driven municipality in Saskatchewan, thanks to its award-winning venture of powering a brand-new wastewater treatment plant with the endless energy of the sun.

With over 2,300 hours of bright sunshine every year, Saskatchewan’s sunkissed landscapes in the Qu’Appelle Valley are a perfect fit for harnessing solar power. And now, Lumsden, an unofficial Regina suburb, has invested $2.7 million for an impressive array of solar panels, powering not just one but four of its municipal facilities to save on operating costs and reduce its environmental footprint.

“We have a lot of sun in Saskatchewan, so let’s take advantage of it,” says Lumsden Councillor Rhonda Phillips, who chairs the wastewater treatment committee.

The strong move to solar secured local officials a first place showing in the solar infrastructure category at the 16th annual Saskatchewan Municipal Awards. Five years of development and planning went into Lumsden’s new solar setup. Now, four arrays of panels help to power a new wastewater treatment facility, two sewage lift stations, and a recycling facility. The solar array for the wastewater treatment plant is a 616 kW array that sits on a setback on town-owned land about the size of two football fields.

Officials have also started to put solar in streetlights to reduce operating costs

Energy savings over the 30-year life of the solar venture are estimated to be more than $2.2 million, while the project will also reduce carbon dioxide equivalents by about 13,100 tons over that time. It contributes to an overall plan of longterm sustainability for the community of about 2,000 residents.

“Since 2009 we have been working diligently to determine the best solution to reduce our environmental impact,” Phillips said at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new wastewater treatment plant.

Lumsden’s wastewater treatment committee realized that a “tremendous amount of electricity” was going to be used in the operation of a new plant, thanks to blowers, bubblers and pumps, so it settled on a solar approach.

The need for a mechanical facility arose from an inability to expand its 50-year-old small sewage lagoons and keep pace with population growth. The community had also been having infiltration problems with sewer tiles, and had battled flood conditions over several years. Phillips said emergency discharges into an adjacent wetland were necessary during those wet years.

The new $21-million plant designed by Stantec Consulting Ltd. opened in 2022 and uses tertiary treatment that reduces biological oxygen demand, phosphorus and nitrogen compounds. It also has a sequencing batch reactor.

The wastewater treatment plant is required to have zero export to the SaskPower grid, which has restricted the amount of solar power that can go to the plant at times, and has required some fine tuning, local officials said. The community also has 1.2 megawatts in its battery energy storage system so that excess power produced during the day goes to the batteries and can shave peak demand, while also running the plant at night.

The other solar-powered facilities in Lumsden require less energy, so they have smaller panels. The main lift station, which required some site preparation work, uses a 13.8 kW panel system, while the south lift station uses just a 5 kW panel system. The recycling facility requires a 25.4 kW panel system, according to municipal documents.

Some of the funding for the solar project came out of Lumsden’s reserves, a debenture, and $1.1 million from Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Low-Carbon Economy Fund, but there was no provincial contribution.

The community’s first experiment with solar came in 2017 for its River Park Community building, where panels gen- erated some 15,000 kilowatts of energy per year. Positive community reception to the concept seemed to propel local officials, said Phillips.

Despite its abundant sunshine, Saskatchewan as a whole is still well behind several other provinces in terms of its sheer volume of solar projects. While Lumsden may currently be blazing a solar path, its larger neighbors are starting to make moves. In April, SaskEnergy announced plans to power the first of many natural gas stations with solar, to run their lighting, heat and control equipment. Don Morgan, Minister Responsible for SaskEnergy, called the move a “major step” towards achieving a 35% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Alberta is also embracing solar. Last year, EPCOR officially opened the kīsikāw pīsim solar farm, which generates up to half of the energy required to power the E. L. Smith Water Treatment Plant in Edmonton. And, in Calgary in 2017, a 626.7 kW solar addition started to pro- vide clean drinking water at the Bears-