The Daniels Faculty's award-winning green roof laboratory (known as the Green Roof Innovation Testing Laboratory, or GRIT Lab) has received and NSERC grant that will allow it to conduct a three-year study on how to best integrate green roofs with Photovoltaic Systems (or solar panels). This study will be the first of its kind in Canada and one of a handful of studies of its kind worldwide.

According to the GRIT Lab's principle investigator, Assistant Professor Liat Margolis, the new NSERC grant will help make the GRIT Lab "the largest, most extensive and most instrumented green roof research facility in the world."

Margolis is conducting this research in collaboration with Professor Brent Sleep and Assistant Professor Jennifer Drake from U of T's Civil Engineering department. Industry partners include Sky Solar, Bioroof, Dh Water Management and IRC Building Science Group.

Established in 2010, the Green Roof Innovation Testing Laboratory (GRIT Lab) is located on the rooftop of the  Daniels Faculty at 230 College Street, Toronto. It includes 33 green roof test beds, 3 green walls, a weather station, and 270 sensors connected to over 5,000 linear feet of wiring. Data on soil moisture, flow rates, temperature, rainfall, humidity, solar, and wind is collected every 5 minutes.

The Lab recently received an Award of Excellence from the American Society of Landscape Architects. “This is by far the most rigorous and comprehensive of all the test-roof research out there," said the 2013 Professional Awards Jury. "In fact, it may be the only empirical study of a green roof. It's particularly notable that it’s in a Northern climate.”

Industry and academic partners include Sky Solar, Schletter, TerraGen Solar, Semple Gooder, Bioroof, Dh Water Management, and IRC Building Science Group, as well as the University of Toronto Facilities & Services and the Sustainability Office, and the John H. Daniels faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

Visit the GRIT Lab's website for more information.