The gas bar canopy at the Co-op cardlock on the outskirts of Regina has a different look to it then before.

Solar panels are being used for the roof as part of a pilot project by Federated Co-op, to potentially help lower energy and power costs at Co-op locations across Western Canada.

Manager of Engineering Technology and Design Chris James says the pilot is an effort to iron out any problems they encounter.

“If it’s raining, we don’t want it to leak. We want it to stand up to hail and snow, and provide good power generation so that we’re doing this the right way,” James said. “We feel that if we run this through a year pilot, we should have enough information to inform how we roll this out.”

James says a lot of design work went into allowing for solar technology.

“We had to spend some time doing the design work, and it’s limited rollout I would say for gas bar canopies,” James said/ “There’s a lot of — I would say — solar shading canopies that are implemented in North America maybe that aren’t as worried about snow and rain, so we did some thoughtful design here around how to keep the elements from coming through the canopy.”

The pilot project will last one year. If all goes well, this will be a design option for Co-op locations across the network when building new canopies at their gas bar locations.