Carbon capture project will buy its own power from southern Alberta solar play

By Medicine Hat News on January 17, 2025.

@MedicineHatNews

A project that would remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere will offset its own carbon footprint through an electricity contract with a southern Alberta solar project.

Quebec-based developer Deep Sky is developing the extraction facility near Innisfail, and would sequester the CO2 at an underground hub near Edmonton, but has signed a power purchase agreement with the “Lethbridge 1” solar farm.

That facility, located south of Highway 3 near the Lethbridge’s western city limits, was connected to the Alberta grid last fall, and would supply 10 gigawatt hours of electricity per year for 10 years under contract for the “Deep Sky Alpha” atmospheric extraction plant.

“Securing renewable power for novel carbon dioxide removal projects is incredibly difficult, and we couldn’t be more excited to have Low Carbon as our partner in Alberta,” said Damien Steel, Deep Sky’s CEO, in a release.

The company was in the news last month after it received a US$40-million grant from climate-focused venture firm, Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, which is supported by Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates.

The Innisfail project is one of four in Canada for Deep Sky.

Lethbridge 1 is owned by U.K.-based firm Low Carbon, which heralded the power purchase agreement even as the market for such arrangements has slowed in Alberta.

“We expect that PPAs will continue to play a major role in helping drive the renewables revolution in the coming years as organizations explore innovative finance options that help reduce emissions from their energy usage and decarbonize the wider economy,” said Low Carbon head of power management Marco Verspuiji.

Deep Sky officials told the Canadian Press in December the Innisfail plant could be in operation in April, and the company plans to invest $100 million in the project over 10 years.

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