1,000-acre solar plan takes a step
By COLLIN GALLANT on June 9, 2019.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant New light is breaking on a proposal to build Canada’s largest solar energy facility in Medicine Hat. The planned 1,000-acre “Saamis Solar” north of Crescent Heights now has a municipal permit, though a timetable on the project is still unknown. The News first broke the story in February that Irish-based DP Energy had plans to build a huge array – comprising 480,000 panels – on the former tailings pond of the Westco Fertilizer plant. However, details were scarce with most of the information gleaned from the company’s website and a similar plan the company is putting forth in Calgary. In late May though, the city’s planning department issued a development permit for the site, an initial step in moving the private sector project forward, though it is not yet before a separate approval process by provincial utility regulators. This winter DP Energy applied for zoning changes on a similar former industrial site in Calgary to build a 160-acre solar park. The Medicine Hat project would be much larger, potentially adding hundreds of construction jobs, about 10 permanent positions as well as millions of dollars to local property tax coffers. The Ireland-based company did not respond to interview requests from the News this week, though landowner Viterra has confirmed it was aware of the local permit. That company declined further comments stating that negotiations between the two firms were ongoing. The city’s business development office also does not comment on potential discussions, citing confidentiality. Agents for DP Energy told the Calgary planning commission in February that mounting panels on pads, not piles, would not disturb capped deposits of phosphorous residue left over from fertilizer production. Such locations have strict guidelines barring most development while reclamation is taking place, but passive energy production was a useful alternative to leaving it fallow. The land in Medicine Hat was capped in the early 2000s by Western Cooperative fertilizer. More recently, Viterra has marketed the entire holding, totalling some 2,500 acres, for sale. The entire swath between Box Springs Road and the South Saskatchewan River is designated as a Future Urban Development zone, a catchall designation for natural landscape without a set purpose. Within such a zone, discretionary uses include “renewable energy facility” along with non-intensive uses such as cattle grazing. As such the city department issued the commercial development permit for 330 32nd St. NW – the address of the pond site. It shows that arrays would be placed on an irregular parcel encompassing parts of five quarter-sections of land. The 1,000-acre site could accommodate 480,000 panels. Observers say construction budgets for solar facility range around $1.5 million per megawatt, leading to an estimated total of about $300 million. According to Natural Resources Canada, the largest solar facility in Canada at the end of 2017 was a 100-megawatt facility in Ontario. DP Energy’s website states the local facility would have a production capacity at peak times of about 200-megawatts, about 12 times more than the Brooks Solar project that, at 15 megawatts, is currently the largest in Western Canada. The City of Medicine’s power generation units can produce a maximum of 255 megawatts of natural gas-fired power. DP energy is not alone in proposing mega-scale solar utility projects in southern Alberta. Solar Krafte, a Calgary company that recently partnered with German utility giant Innogy, has several proposed facilities in the Brooks area that would be scalable to about 400-megawatts. Those are currently before provincial regulators, for approval, while Greengate power is studying a 400-megawatt plant in Vulcan County. 26-25
