Alice sheds light on solar power

By Margaret Hele

GARDEN RIVER FN –  Using solar power and a generator to provide light and heat for your home is a blessing –  and a challenge.

Alice Corbiere  loves the sunshine and the power it produces without accompanying hydro bills. But it makes her acutely aware of how much power is consumed by having even a single appliance plugged into an outlet. Not turned on – just plugged in. A microwave and toaster will not be found in Alice’s home because they consume too much power.

Solar panels can produce power from light alone, which can pose problems  during November and December when shorter days mean less sunlight and snow that covers the panels. During the winter months Alice – who has six solar panels on the roof of her home in Garden River First Nation– turns her refrigerator off and uses the outdoors to keep her meat frozen and her milk cold. She places meat in plastic bags to hang outside, then into a cooler where it will stay frozen. She shops more frequently for perishable items. She works from a second-floor balcony when it’s  necessary to knock the snow and ice away from the roof-top panels.

“I knock a little off the bottom edge and then jump back” says Alice. “A few times the whole panel of snow came off and covered me.” When the days are shorter and the snow flies, Alice spends her time at her son’s or sister’s home to work on her computer, as there is not sufficient electricity to run her computer for long periods of time without the backup of a generator. Now in her mid-Seventies, Alice continues to haul and pour gas for her generator which is necessary to provide her with electricity to enable her to cook, run her water pump, and listen to her radio.

One recent morning Alice heard a knocking at her door, and opened it to see a woman trying to get into her shed. The woman was at the wrong house, but Alice called out: “Would you turn on my generator while you’re there? Save me coming out in the cold.” The woman gruffly replied, “I’m not starting no generator,” and made a beeline for her car.