P.E.I and Community Wind Farms

Summerside sets example for community wind power projects
A1BY ALAN COCHRANE
TIMES & TRANSCRIPT STAFF
Stumble Upondel.icio.usDiggFacebookPrintEmail5 Comment(s)Now that New Brunswick's existing wind farms are expanding, the next step is to help individual communities harness the power of the wind to generate their own electricity, Energy Minister Jack Keir said yesterday.

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GREG AGNEW/TIMES & TRANSCRIPTBy the end of the year, this lineup of TransAlta windmills seen from the Magnetic Hill area will include 18 new units. GREG AGNEW/TIMES & TRANSCRIPTSteve Snyder, left, CEO and president of TransAlta, chats with Energy Minister Jack Keir at the Lions Club in Riverview yesterday. GREG AGNEW/TIMES & TRANSCRIPTDr. Yves Gagnon "The big wind farms represent large-scale investments by big companies. A 100-megawatt wind farm is a $200-million to $250-million investment. That's a lot of money where I come from and so, in order to get those big wind farms on, you need big companies to invest.

"The next step to get wind on the grid is small community wind farms that generate about 10-megawatts, and so we're going to put a renewable policy in place that's going to allow a smaller wind farm to also get onto the grid."

The provincial government has been working on a new policy for community wind farms for about two years and Keir hinted yesterday that an announcement is coming soon.

The energy minister was in Riverview with officials of the TransAlta Corporation to announce that 18 more windmills will be added to the Kent Hills Wind Farm south of Moncton. TransAlta already has 32 windmills at the site, which began commercial operations in December 2008. Construction of another 18 windmills is expected to begin later this year and cost about $100 million.

Once complete, the Kent Hills site will provide 160 megawatts of electricity per year, enough to supply about 9,000 homes. TransAlta will hold an open house in Moncton on Jan. 28 for companies that want to participate in the construction project. TransAlta president Steve Snyder said local contractors and suppliers will be hired for many aspects of the construction project.

"Once this expansion is complete, the 150-megawatt Kent Hills Wind Farm will be the largest wind farm in Atlantic Canda," Keir said.

New Brunswick communities thinking about setting up their own wind farm might find inspiration across the Northumberland Strait in the City of Summerside. The P.E.I. community generates its own electricity, sells it to NB Power and uses the money for its own infrastructure projects.

"When the wind is blowing, we have enough capacity to power the whole city but, most of the time, we have to buy electricity from NB Power," Terry Murphy, the chief administrative officer for the City of Summerside, said yesterday.

Summerside has a population of about 15,000 and recently built the new Credit Union Place, a 4,000-seat, multi-use arena complete with pools, fitness centre and bowling alley.

Murphy said Summerside has had its own electrical utility since 1885 and historically purchased power from New Brunswick. It also had diesel-powered backup generators for emergencies.

He said the city's idea to build a wind farm came along with the new arena. The arena had a $40-million price tag but the city could get only $10 million in government money, but it could get $22 million of the $30 million required to build the wind farm. It used infrastructure money from the gas tax fund to set up four big windmills that each generate three megawatts of electricity for a total of 12 megawatts. The windmills are set up on the shores of Malpeque Bay but inside city limits.

Murphy likes to state that Summerside is the only city in Canada that is bordered on two sides by the ocean.

The city-owned utility sells the electricity it generates to NB Power for approximately $1 million a year, and puts that money back into infrastructure.

Murphy said the big decision was to divert infrastructure money that could have gone into paving streets toward windmills, but the city figured it was better to use that money to build something that would create an ongoing revenue stream.

He said the other tough part was negotiating a deal to sell that power.

"There's no sense in building a wind farm unless you can get a fair rate on the grid."

Keir said yesterday that New Brunswick will continue looking at ways to generate new wind energy and that won't change with the controversial sale of NB Power's assets to Hydro-Quebec.

"New Brunswick is always going to be in charge of their energy policy, their energy initiatives and their energy sovereignty. That's not going to change," Keir said.

He added that TransAlta has long-term power purchase agreements with NB Power, and the windmills will remain the property of TransAlta. He said community wind farms would have similar deals.

Keir said having big companies like TransAlta invest their own money to build and operate the windmills makes good financial sense.

"We could do it ourselves, but there's large investment dollars required for it," Keir said. "My own personal view is that government funds should be used on hospitals and schools and roads. If we can get the private sector to invest in our communities and these types of project, I'm more than willing to let the private sector do it."

But Yves Gagnon, chairman of the K.C. Irving Centre for Sustainable Development at l'Université de Moncton, disagrees. Gagnon, who was present at yesterday's announcement in Riverview, says the provincial government should set up a crown corporation to deal with wind power so the province can benefit from the profits of its operation.

"The large economic impacts from the generation of electricity are in the control of the profits, so you need to control the profits if you want economic impact. And controlling the profits means you need to own the wind farm," Gagnon said.

"The government is hammering the message of self-sufficiency. Well, if we want self-sufficiency we need to exploit our natural resources to the benefit of the population of New Brunswick. By this announcement, what the New Brunswick government is saying is that the self-sufficiency agenda is dead."

A small group of protesters, angry over the sale of NB Power to Hydro-Quebec, stood outside shivering in the cold yesterday. Keir admitted there is still a lot of opposition to the deal with many calling for a referendum, but he said people voted for change and the Graham government is making changes.

"We've got an opportunity before us that I've never seen in a long time. I believe in my heart the opportunity we've got with this proposed agreement with Hydro-Quebec is an opportunity to change the economic landscape in New Brunswick in such a positive way than we've had before, and I want to take advantage of that."

He also said progress is being made on tidal power as 15 sites along the Bay of Fundy are being studied.

Keir added that New Brunswick is also watching with interest the research Nova Scotia is doing on tidal power.