Land between the CF Industries fertilizer facility and Crescent Heights has been approved the site of a 1,600-acre solar farm proposed by DP Energy. The 325-megawatt array would be built partially on the former site of the Westco Fertilizer tailings pond. -- NEWS File PHOTO COLLIN GALLANT, October 1, 2020
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Canada’s largest urban solar field is approved to be built in Canada sunniest city.
The Alberta Utilities Commission ruled late Thursday that renewable power developer DP Energy can build the proposed Saamis Solar project on 1,600 acres of land between Crescent Heights and industrial plant sites in the northwest of the city.
Local opponents, including several adjacent land owners and an oil company operating on the land, had argued for a smaller footprint that didn’t extend east of Division Avenue North.
The AUC ruled however, that without a near term plan to build housing, the current level of disturbance, and the ability drill for oil horizontally for oil exploration, the entire proposal was in the public interest.
The “Commission is satisfied that the project is unlikely to significantly affect” future housing projects or exploiting the oil field, though effects on portions of native grasslands should be mitigated.
Officials with the Ireland-based developer told the News on Friday they are evaluating the decision and conditions, and will have a public position next week.
Conditions on the project first identified in 2015 and made public in 2018 include typically monitoring and reporting requirements. A dispute resolution program must be developed and registered with the AUC, and the project is be subject to a reclamation program now being developed by the province.
It must also reimburse “reasonable costs” incurred by Journey Energy to accommodate solar field layout and construction.
Calls to Journey and large land owners were not returned on Friday.
The AUC heard the matter this spring in a public hearing and gives a February 2027 for completion of the project and related substation that would connect it to the Alberta power grid, not the city-owned power system.
When build, it will be one of the largest solar arrays in Canada with more than 600,000 panels and a peak capacity of 325-megawatts.
Currently, only the Travers facility in Vulcan County is bigger, at 465 megawatts, though several projects the same size are proposed.
The largest facilities projects within an urban municipality are the Barlow and Deerfoot solar parks in Calgary, with a combined capacity of 64 MW, and now owned by Atco.
Those projects were also developed by DP Energy on land owned by Viterra where leftover contamination from fertilizer production hampers development.
Saamis was originally proposed to be placed mostly over the capped phosphogypsum stack of the former Westco Fertilizer tailings ponds north of Crescent Heights.
In 2020, however, Viterra opened up the remainder of its historic land holdings north of Rotary Centennial Way (formerly 23rd St.) for long-term lease for the Saamis project, the AUC hearing was told.
That expanded footprint became the point of contention for several local groups that opposed the project at AUC hearings this spring.
Several property developers with land north of Ranchlands argued that if the facility was allowed to cross east of Division Ave., it would strand their property in a development queue.
Wayne Bowerman and his wife, Gwen, live on Hunt Crescent in northeast Crescent Heights and argued the large project would detract from the area and potentially provide glare and nuisance.
“It’s taking what was a nice landscape, that was being used and replacing it with something that’s not so nice,” said Wayne Bowerman of the pasture.
“Progress goes on, but it’s an area that’s disappearing.”
The land is currently zoned as a future urban development zone – a catchall category for land with no set use, though large portions of it sit in a more general plan as a future employment centre, earmarked for medium to light industrial uses going west to east from plant sites.
The City was a registered observer in the AUC hearings into the private sector project.
On Friday, top officials called the now-approved Saamis a “major project within our municipal boundaries (that) has the near-term potential for economic benefits.”
“It is too early to identify true economic benefits which will become more clear as the project progresses,” said energy division managing director Rochelle Pancoast.
The News was the first to report on the proposal in 2019, and at that time, council members were most interested in potential tax revenue.
A project that size could cost more than $400 million to build, using general industry estimates, and will likely employ hundreds during construction. A yet-to-be-determined valuation would boost tax assessment base in the city with relatively little new public infrastructure required.
A production capacity of 325 megawatts in peak weather conditions eclipses the total capacity of the City of Medicine Hat’s power complex of 299 megawatts.
