A childhood spent a quick jaunt from the natural beauty of the prairies, foothills and Rockies left a lasting impression on Calgarian Anouk Kendall, who has dedicated her career to championing clean, localized energy.
Kendall, now 37, was in Grade 4 when her family moved out of the city and onto an acreage in Springbank. It was there she developed her love of the outdoors.
“I was a kid in a candy store,” she says with a laugh.
“I thought it was great; there were horses across the street and I could hang out in hay fields.”
That appreciation for what Kendall calls the “pristine” character of Calgary has stuck with her over the years, driving her mission to make decentralized energy a viable alternative to traditional power sources, not only in Alberta, but across Canada.
Since 2002, Kendall has been president of New Energy Resources Alliance (NewERA), a national non-profit decentralized energy industry association.
“We realized in 2007 that we weren’t going to grow unless we partnered with someone else,” she says.
So last year, NewERA merged with the World Alliance for Decentralized Energy (WADE), a worldwide industry association. Today, Kendall is the country manager of the Canadian chapter, and has made the move to Montreal, continuing her work convincing energy stakeholders of the environmental and financial benefits of placing electricity production closer to the site of consumption.
“I think the flow of information between east and west is really important right now, so I jumped out of Calgary to get some context of what’s going on in Quebec and Ontario,” she says.
Back in Alberta, major stakeholders in the energy world are beginning to take note of Kendall’s conventions and market research.
She is inspired by Calgary-area projects such as the Drake Landing solar community in Okotoks, the first community in the world to supply 90 per cent of residents’ space heating needs from solar energy, and the Calgary Downtown District Energy Centre, Calgary’s first district heating system, slated for construction in 2009.
“We are so far down the oilsands path, that’s a reality for us,” Kendall says.
“The important thing now is that we dedicate some of our time, expertise and money into the longer-term sustainable side of energy.”
Kendall promotes better planning, where communities and buildings produce on-site energy through solar, geoexchange systems. residential combined heat and power units and wind power to offset the demand from the central coal-powered electric plants in northern Alberta.
“Calgary definitely has the most potential for being a world leader in renewable and decentralized energy,” she says.
“We have the research facilities and the talent. But we’ve never been faced with this challenge before because we’ve been so lucky with our resources. The time is coming when we are going to have to use our talents for something other than what we’ve been doing for the last 70 years.”
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