THE SUNRISE RETROFIT FEATURES AN 29-METRE MURAL MADE OF BUILDING-INTEGRATED PHOTOVOLTAICS AND WAS CREATED BY LOCAL ARTIST LANCE CARDINAL

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The solar artwork system is expected to cut energy costs for the building by $80,000 per year.

By Mitchell Beer

Guinness World Records has a shiny, new entry after an apartment building in Edmonton, supplied by Etobicoke-based Mitrex Integrated Solar Technology, earned recognition for the world’s largest solar panel artwork.

The SunRise Retrofit features an 29-metre mural made of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) and created by local artist Lance Cardinal, a member of the Bigstone Cree Nation. It’s “part of a retrofit that added over 2,000 panels on all sides of the building across a palette of black, red, blue, yellow, orange, green, and brown,” Sustainable Biz Canada reports.

The 265-kilowatt project can “power a significant portion of The SunRise’s operations and offset 150 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year,” the news story states.

The project “incorporates a BIPV facade on all elevations of the 12-storey building, with a fully solar mural on the north façade,” concludes [pdf] a Mitrex case study. “Initially, the client, Avenue Living Asset Management, planned to use fibre cement siding as the cladding solution for the retrofit. However, Mitrex proposed a BIPV façade that would help achieve the client’s goal of a 50% reduction in carbon emissions, a requirement for securing retrofit financing” from the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

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