Big Marble Greenhouses as seen in a 2017 aerial view. Big Marble is the first business to take advantage of new rules that allow power to be sold back to the City of Medicine Hat.--FILE PHOTO
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The first agreement under new rules allowing local businesses to sell power back into the City of Medicine Hat system may be nearing completion, the News has learned.
Big Marble Greenhouses has applied to provincial regulators to allow it to provide excess electricity from its growing facility near Highway 3 to the City of Medicine Hat’s system, under a sales agreement.
City officials confirmed to the News the expected deal is the first of its kind under new provisions in an electricity bylaw passed last fall.
They allow large commercial or industrial consumers to become net suppliers of power produced by on-site generation equipment.
That mimics a loosening of rules on the Alberta grid system that are being developed with the hope of spurring companies to build “own-use” power supply able to access the Alberta system, providing power and earning secondary revenue.
“That allows net to grid, and we’ve always tried to allow customers the same options if they were anywhere else in Alberta,” said Travis Tuchsherer, the city’s director of energy marketing and business analysis. “If they’re not using their onsite generation for growing lights – and there are times there is excess power – they have the opportunity to sell it onto our grid.”
The provisions are available to companies that produce amounts of power above five megawatts – the line where a distinction is made between smaller micro-generation and larger utility-scale facilities.
Terms of the agreement are not being made public.
Big Marble, which declined comment on the application, operates what is known as a CHP unit. That produces carbon dioxide (which is used to aid plant growth), heat and power.
Its stated capacity is 12 megawatts, and last year applied to instal a backup generator, bringing the total gas-fired production capacity to 13.3 megawatts.
The company asked the Alberta Utilities Commission this week to approve the connect the facility, which is located outside city limits in Cypress County, but within the city’s power franchise area.
The city and Cancarb have had a power purchase agreement in place since the late 1970s regarding power produced in a heat-recovery generator at the carbon black production facility in Brier Park. It was most recently updated and expanded when the production plant was expanded in 2020.
The city also has a power purchase agreement with three-turbine Box Springs Wind farm since 2013.
Those firms are licensed power generators, which allowed them to market power without the legislative changes.
Substation support
Big Marble has also lent its support to the city application to resolve another issue facing the city’s distribution system in the southwest quadrant.
Last year the city was denied in its selection of a site for a new substation which it says is needed to regulate flow in the south end and support general growth in power demand in the area. County residents near the proposed sites won their objections to the AUC however, and in December the city reapplied with two alternate locations west of Highway 3.
Electrical distribution managers told a city committee on Thursday that the period of public feedback on the issue expires Monday with no objections filed to the AUC as of that day. A letter of support from Big Marble however, has been registered.
“I believe that we’ve worked hard to mitigate any concerns (with the new locations),” said Grayson Mauch, director of gas and power distribution.
If no objections are received, a decision could be rendered by regulators without a hearing.
