The Blue Bulletin

Énergir provides a grant for this program of up to $200,000. The grant is $2 per cubic meter of natural gas saved using a solar collector connected to a system that runs on natural gas.

See the eligible solar thermal collectors.

How does it work?

Seizing an opportunity

The aluminum smelter's casting center contains a number of natural gas furnaces that are used to process pure aluminum into alloy ingots, in particular for the automobile industry. A project was underway to improve the ventilation of this building.

Decisive financial assistance

A long-time partner of the aluminum smelter, Énergir guided Alcoa Deschambault toward a solar wall to meet its needs—a solution that harnesses clean and free renewable energy. It also supported Deschambault in their innovation process, allowing the client to benefit from a $200,000 Solar Preheating Grant under Énergir's Energy Efficiency Program – Renewable Energy.

Effective, sustainable results

"The realization of this project allowed us to improve the ventilation of the casting center and also to reduce our heating needs—before, we started heating the building when it was 10°C outside. Today, thanks to the solar wall and the other energy efficiency measures we've implemented, we no longer need to heat until it's -2°C outside. That's a significant improvement with tangible repercussions on employee well-being and our energy bill,” stated Alexandre Dubreuil, Environment Administrator at Alcoa's Deschambault aluminum smelter .