With numerous solar projects completed and underway in southeast Alberta, officials say capacity goals are nearly two decades ahead of schedule.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
From Oyen to Irvine and west past the Hat, renewable energy projects moved ahead en masse this summer in southeast Alberta, and new reports state the pace will continue for several years.
The Alberta Electrical System Operator’s latest long-term adequacy report states the amount of renewable power generation in the province will double in the next 18 months, and could add the same amount again by 2025 if approved projects move along.
Many of those are located in southern Alberta, where utility-scale solar projects have grown from one with 15 megawatts of capacity (at Brooks) in 2018, to nearly 1,000 megawatts this month.
That’s a level not predicted even under best-case scenarios until 2041 by the AESO in forecasts released two years ago.
“We’re hitting it 19 years ahead of schedule,” Blake Shaffer, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Calgary specializing in electricity markets, told the News on Wednesday.
“There is a real rise in solar and continued interest in wind projects. And we’re hitting these numbers years before we were forecast.”
That has included projects in the southeast cumulatively totalling more than $1 billion in construction this year.
In August alone, towers and turbines began going up at the Cypress Energy wind farm between Dunmore and the Cypress Hills.
Pattern Energy is building the $350-million Lanfine wind farm, near Acadia Valley, and announced this week contractor Borea Construction has entered final development of the 36-turbine wind farm toward an end-of-year commissioning date.
According to a release, the project created 200 construction jobs and will employ up to 10 staff permanently.
“This new park will also provide an important boost to the local economy in the region … generate landowner revenue and provide tax revenue to the local community,” the statement read.
Work is also advancing at the Potentia Renewables wind farm near Jenner, at the separate Hilda Wind project and winding up at the Suncor Forty Mile wind farm south of Bow Island.
Solar plants in Hays, the Taber area along the Trans-Canada are also underway.
The next solar plant to come onto the AESO system will push total solar generating capacity of all large-scale solar plants in Alberta above 1,000 megawatts, or 1 gigawatt. That amount represents about 10 per cent of the province’s average demand, though production is weather dependent.
New arrays comprising another 1,200 megawatts are under construction and expected online in the next 12 months, while another 900 megawatts among numerous projects just recently approved by regulators.
Public statements by developers suggest there is as much as 10,000 megawatts in development, but depend on business conditions, such as financing, regulatory approval and access to transmission system before moving ahead.
Similarly for wind, existing, in-service facilities have a combined generating capacity of about 2,250 megawatts, with 2,500-megawatts of capacity in the construction stage.
If completed as expected, the total wind and solar generating capacity would rise to about 7,000 megawatts, almost one third of the entire sector in Alberta.
A roundup of major projects in the area:
– The Lanfine Wind project, in Special Areas 3 and the MD of Acadia, has a in-service date Nov. 1;
– Hilda Wind, 200 megawatts, in service, Oct. 7;
– The Cypress Energy Centre developer EDF is now erecting 48 towers south of Irvine and has applied to essentially double its size with the neighbouring Bull Trail wind farm in 2024;
– Sharp Hills Wind farm, near Oyen, a long-delayed winner of the provincial Renewable Energy Program (REP) green energy auction, it will come online in December and provide 250 megawatts instead as part of a power purchase agreement with TC Energy;
– Potentia Renewables has proceeded with additional phases of its Jenner Wind Farm beyond portion that won long-term REP contracts in 2018.
– Forty Mile Maleb, 200 MW, near Forty Mile Reservoir, is nearing commissioning though Suncor has announced it plans to sell the wind farm in early 2023 to focus the oil giant on its main area of business;
– The long-standing WildRose II wind farm is going ahead after the 2009-proposed facility was acquired by Capstone Infrastructure who has secured power purchase agreements with Pembina Pipelines and the City of Edmonton.
– Chappice Lake Solar, 10 megawatts with battery storage, scheduled online on Oct. 31;
– Dunmore Solar, 216 megawatts capacity built on parts of six quarter-sections near the Highways 41 and 41A intersection, has an in-service date of April 2023.
