Turbines from the Cypress Energy Wind farm, near Highway 41, are shown on Sept. 28.--News Photo Collin Gallant
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
Hatters will hear about how to participate in a debate about renewable power production in the province next week, but will have to wait a little longer to voice their opinion.
An Alberta Utilities Commission event in Medicine Hat next week, held in the midst of a seven-month pause of green power project approvals, will be more of an open house, AUC officials told the News this week.
It will include information about how to participate in latter stages of the review on wind and solar projects that will be conducted late this year, including a verbal hearing.
The series of three meetings in Alberta’s rural areas began this week in Red Deer, and next visits Medicine Hat on Tuesday.
Regulators will be at the Wyndham Gardens Hotel on Seventh Street (across the Trans-Canada Highway from the hospital) on Tuesday from 3-8 p.m.
Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf, along with Premier Danielle Smith and Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Justin Wright, have all said the pause is reasonable considering the large number of renewable projects in the approvals queue.
“It’s getting it right, it’s understanding how it’s going to make impacts now and in the future and it’s treating everybody fairly, especially the ratepayer,” Neudorf told the Lethbridge Herald in August.
NDP energy critic Nagwan Al-Guneid however, has blasted the government for shaking investor confidence and threatening jobs when polls show most Albertans approve of moving forward with renewables.
“I encourage Albertans to take part in this process, and to ask why this government put a halt on an entire growing industrial sector of Alberta’s economy with no notice and no consultation,” she told the News on Friday.
In Medicine Hat, AUC officials will discuss the current moratorium on green energy projects, and the process of how the review will proceed, according to AUC officials in correspondence with the News this week.
The final meeting takes place Wednesday in Pincher Creek, then a period of formal written submissions will open until later this month, according to an AUC bulletin on Sept. 11.
Municipalities, like Cypress County, which called for such a review early in the summer and backed the government’s announced “pause” on Aug. 3, will be allotted a period to state formal positions in December. An “oral hearing” is set for mid-December. The AUC report is due in March.
In early September the AUC announced its review would focus on five main areas:
– Development rules pertaining to classes of agricultural land;
– Determining the impact of power plant development on “Alberta’s pristine viewscapes”;
– Potential securities registered toward the eventual decommissioning of facilities;
– The potential of allowing power plant development on Crown Land and;
– Considerations for the impact of an influx of renewable generation on the supply mix and system reliability.
