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Latest news, events and updates

Sun Rise:Your Complete Guide to Sustainable Living

Jan 22, 2018

Check out the Open iPub version of Sun Rise. This book explains in simple terms, how we all can start using solar energy, wind power, breathing walls, straw bale home construction techniques, passive solar design, smart windows, green roofs, and composting - today!

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History of Solar Shingles

Jan 18, 2018

As the world accepts and implements more solar technology, it’s being seen as a design choice as well as an environmental movement.

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Hyperloop and the Future of Train Travel

Jan 17, 2018

In the last one-hundred years, transportation advancements have steamed past the railcars of the 1800s to bring us automobiles that will soon reach complete and total autonomy and passenger aircraft that can crush the sound barrier.

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Soil is the answer

Dec 4, 2017

Soil carbon sequestration is the key to solving the climate change challenge. Tony Lovell explains the reasoning behind how more green growing plants means more captured carbon dioxide -- more water -- more production -- more biodiversity -- more profit. Did you know that a 1% change in soil organic matter across just one-quarter of the World's land area could sequester 300 billion tonnes of physical CO2.

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Edit Festival - Festival of the Future

Oct 2, 2017

In partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, EDIT is a 10-day immersive festival that will bring us one step closer to achieving the UNDP's Sustainable Development Goals. A $15 day pass gets you access to the speakers, exhibits, and workshops making a profound difference in the world today.

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Fresh Food Farm in Downtown Toronto

Sep 25, 2017

An indoor farm sprouts in downtown Toronto. Come on over Saturday mornings and check it out.

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Why do we need
Solar Village?

Young people need housing, healthy food and a community they can afford that is sustainable

Young people, low income, and middle income families are facing a massive housing crisis that requires a sustainable solutions. We need to create communities that make housing, food and energy affordable for all. "Many Western countries, Canada, the U.S. and Britain among them, are currently facing a housing crisis when it comes to middle- to low-income residents. A combination of soaring real estate values, high rents, stagnant wages and a premium on urban space have conspired in recent years to make it difficult for regular working people to acquire stable, affordable family housing." according to a recent Mcleans Magazine article. Healthy food, local jobs, and long term economic security require a new type of community.

Affordability

Many factors need to be addressed in order to make housing, food, transportation and communities affordable. Four critical factors that Solar Village aims to address include size, cost to build, location, and on-going operating costs. Innovation will include re-using waste material, open sourcing the design/build process in order to rapidly optimize it particular to a wide variety of circumstances, and developing a research institute to further these aims.

Sustainability

Affordable housing and food in a world collapsing from climate change impacts also must be addressed. Young people are the ones that will be affected by these changes and they expect their housing and healthy food to address the critical factors causing climate change. These impacts include the need to address building materials, energy consumption during the build and on-going, water conservation, resource management, food production and integration with clean transportation options.

Community

Critical to the vision of Solar Village is the need to address the social, cultural, political, organizational, health and psychological requirements of community members. In an increasingly complex world, with ever greater challenges to community, and human health, we must look deeply at the patterns of social dislocation and economic inequality that is the root cause of the challenge people in community face.

What is Solar Village?

Affordable sustainable community for everyone


Image Source: Inhabitat

We are a group of innovators, solar enthusiasts, current solar home owners and prospective Solar Village home owners & community builders, young and old, permaculture fanatics, designers, artists and musicians.

 

Vision

We will show people just how easy it is to grow food using their own hands, build their own homes, generate their own energy and how to access all of these open source resources available to everyone to make it easy to do. People will come and trade their labor for crops as is common among some market farms where people will work for a day and take home a small box of food. During a Permaculture course, people will learn how to design and build their own home and farm, taking away the open source designs to build it themselves.

Food

We are building a community center similar to EverGreen Brickworks where their are garden greenhouses. a restaurant/cafe, and a bed and breakfast type place.

Hands-on Workshops

Image Source: Everdale.org Photo Credit: Jeff Birrell

Similar to Everdale we will offer workshops and classes for people interested in all aspects of Solar Village.

Community Gardens

Solar Village will allow people to come in and use shared facilities as their own, by having a community garden and kitchen, tool library and different work spaces.

Permaculture Design


By Graham Burnett - Permaculture, a Beginners Guide, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4507854

It will be built using all the design principles of Permaculture, Solar Village, Biomimicry, plus take all these different concents we've been learning about like aquaponics, market gardening, and sustainable design concepts like the bio gas generators and regenerative waste management.

Renewable Energy and Resources

Two critical challenges face all of humanity as we come to grips with the Anthropocene. First, is the necessity to move to 100% renewable energy for all our needs. The second is a move to 100% renewable resource usage in a closed loop. Combined these create the need for a circular economy that is equitable.

Open Source

Advances and rapidly dropping costs for computing technology, solar photovoltaic panels for capturing energy, 3D printing, robotics, wireless communication and artificial intelligence, when applied according to the principles of open source development makes rapid innovation and equitable access critical drivers for the development Solar Village.

DIY (Do-It-Yourself)

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.� said Margaret Mead. Solar Village is dedicated to creating and supporting small groups of people and communities in their desire to design, develop and build their own homes and communities according to the principles of nature (DIY example).

Solar Powered Transportation


Sonos solar car. Crowdfunding on Indiegogo.

Transportation in Solar Village will range from walking, biking, skateboarding, to transit and solar powered cars like Sonos.

Sonos Solar Car

The Sion is an innovative electric car with integrated solar cells in the body, a range of 250km and a price of less than € 16,000. 30 free kilometers per day are possible with electricity generated by the sun. The stored energy can be used through bidirectional charging for all common electronic devices. Sion is a family friendly vehicle, thanks to 6 seats and optional trailer coupling. In Short: A self-charging electric car for infinite, sustainable driving. Check it out on Indiegogo.

Hyperloop Tansit

Elon Musk of SpaceX, Tesla and Solar City renoun, brought Hyperloop to the attention of the public back in 2013. The idea continues to develop with the launch of a second design competition sponsored by SpaceX.

VW Solar Camper

In reality there are people like Daniel Theobald who are creating the future of solar powered transportation today. Check out the Solar Village Open Source news item on 1966 VW Bus Goes Solar Electric for all the details.

How are we going to create Solar Villages everywhere?

Using the concepts of rapid development, iteration, open source sharing, and evolution.

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We will rapidly design, prototype, build, iterate and share our ideas. As they develop and evolve we will deploy them always with feedback into the group.

Design

On-going design processes will ensure that the building envelope, materials, assembly, heating, electrical and other elements of the buildings in the community are constantly improving on the design.

Develop

Prototype work and development planning will ensure a steady stream of projects to learn from and feed back into the open source systems. Development and design photo credit - National Institute of Building Sciences

Deploy

Deployment and build projects will provide real world feedback with integrated monitoring and data collections systems, as well as builder/owner/commmunity feedback.
Image Source: Photo Credit: David Crouch, Department of Energy

Open Source Community Builder Design

Projects

Projects that Solar Village is involved with, partnering with or developing.

Wilson Natural Home image

Wilson Natural Home

Zero Fossil Fuels

Bullfrog Power Logo

Solar Village in Action

Tamera Peace Research Center

John Wilson speaking at Queens University

Personal Power in a Solar Village

Inspiring Vision for Solar Village by John Wilson

Wastenot Worm Farms Logo

Wastenot Farms

Advisor

Aquaponics Natural Food Factory

Aquaponics

Natural Food Factory

Better Current Jenni solar charger

Better Current

Solar Design & Build

Open iPub

BioGas Waste to Energy

Tamera Solar Cities BioGas Workshop

Sun Rise eBook Cover

Sun Rise

Free eBook

Solar Village

Solar Village

Documentary Video

About

We've been building and testing this vision for more than twenty years.

Purpose

Build a solar powered, closed resource loop, community. Share the knowledge, systems and components so that communities everywhere can implement them.

Goals

  1. Build a community that is solar powered with closed loop use of resources as a model, and central test bed and research facility for th on-going development.
  2. Develop and build a system for sharing the ideas, concepts, systems, components, and models developed in an open source model.

Background

 

  • August 2001

    Our Humble Beginnings

    Award-winning Wilson Natural home build completion. Home features straw bale walls, passive solar design, and green roof.

  • September 2003

    Solar + Wind

    In 2002 we added 400 watts of solar and a 1 kW wind turbine. Since the day we had built the house we tried to show people how amazing our house with no furnace and no air conditioner was. Finally in 2003 the Toronto Star newspaper featured our home so we had 1800 visitors for the tour that year.

    Play Video!

  • MARCH 2005

    Freiburg Solar Village Documentary

    Visiting Freiburg Germany in 2005 was a pivotal moment as we discovered and documented how the "solar capital" of Europe came to be.

    Play Video!

  • August 2016

    Launch New Website

    Refined focus on making sustainable housing affordable for young people.

  • Be Part
    Of Our
    Story!

Our Team

Ian and John Wilson are solar village fanatics.

Ian Wilson

chief youth advocate

A snowboard and skateboard fanatic, with a love for growing organic food, and cooking it for friends and family, Ian Wilson brings a youthful desire to create a better world for his friends and family so they all can enjoy the outdoors as much as he does, well into the future. Ian is currently apprentice chef at the Banff Centre.

Prior to the Banff Centre and killing the slopes around Banff, Ian worked on three different farms including a conventional one, an organic farm, and most recently on a farm where he experimented with Permaculture growing techniques.

A passion for the outdoors and a love of canoeing has driven Ian to find better ways to live lightly, albeit energetically, on this wonderful earth we all share. Ian has played a part in the construction of a the Wilson Natural Home, featured in the documentary video, and provided production support for the documentary video Solar Village. Ian is currently looking for a camping van to turn into the ultimate solar powered mobile home on wheels.

John Wilson

founder

A software development expert and renewable energy innovator, John Wilson brings 27 years experience in IT management to his role as Vice President, Operations at Bullfrog Power.

Prior to Bullfrog Power, John held several senior technology positions at Fidelity National Information Services Wealth Management Division where he defined and developed a wireless wealth management solution, and implemented one of the first wireless product offerings in Canada.

A trailblazer in low-carbon living, John, with his wife Leigh, designed and built their award-winning, sustainable Wilson Natural home in 2001. John has also produced three documentary films, Wilson Natural Home, Solar Village and Hope for a Change: Renewable Energy. John is currently developing autonomous solar power for consumer electronics such as laptop computers, tablets and mobile phones with a startup he founded with two partners in 2014 called Better Current.

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.� - Gandhi

Contact Us

Let's create a solar powered future together.