INNISFAIL – The Town of Innisfail is moving robustly forward to jump into the power business with its own municipal solar farm; a facility constructed in the new Southwest Industrial Park that could bring in a half million dollars a year.
“Yes, we would be marketing. We would be selling the electricity, whether we're just selling it into the grid, or if we were selling it directly to a single user,” said Meghan Jenkins, the town’s director of community services of the planned project in the town’s former sewage lagoon lands. “We've been looking at it (solar farm) since we've been planning the industrial park because the land was not able to be fully reclaimed.
“We can't sell it as industrial land to another user,” added Jenkins. “We were looking for other options, and this is a way for the town to generate revenue off land that we weren't going to be able to sell anyways.”
However, the town is estimating the total cost to get the new municipal solar farm up and running is $3.5 million.
To cover that cost, the town is planning a debenture through another borrowing bylaw, similar to the one council approved last July to secure a loan of $5.5 million to finance the development of the Southwest Industrial Park, an investment that is expected to be fully offset by the revenues generated by current land sales.
“We have to look at each project individually and then assess it. When I look at something like the solar project, where it's going to be potentially generating half a million dollars a year in revenue, that's significant,” said Town of Innisfail Mayor Jean Barclay. “But the numbers have to make sense and the return on investment has to make sense.”
Steven Kennedy, the town’s director of operations, brought an update of the ambitious municipal solar power plan to council on Sept. 12.
A motion was passed to approve the next two phases of the six-phase solar farm development project at a cost of $109,485; monies to cover the cost of additional studies with electrical grid providers that are necessary for the project’s interconnection process.
Council was told the primary goal moving forward is to obtain all relevant permits to move ahead with detailed engineering and construction. The town is hoping to start development of the project in 2023.
Jenkins said the municipal solar project will take up seven acres, which is considerably smaller than the 96-acre 25.4 megawatt (MW) Innisfail Solar Farm just north of the Innisfail Golf Club. The privately-owned project was constructed in 2019-20 at a cost of about $24 million.
She said the proposed municipal solar farm will be able to generate 1.5 to 2 MW of power from the seven-acre space.
Jenkins said the site will eventually look like the Innisfail Solar Farm. There will be solar panels and a small building that houses the transformers and the electronic equipment that manages the site.
She said the town is still studying options of where the future power will go.
If the town wants to sell it to an electrical grid it has to go through an interconnection approval process with the Alberta Utilities Commission to tie in the power. The town can also sell it directly to the new businesses in the industrial park.
“As we're marketing the other properties within the industrial park, we are looking at opportunities where you could directly power a suitable business if we're able to make that happen. It is kind of one or the other,” said Jenkins of the two options.
She added the town is already in discussions with potential business owners about the potential of town-owned solar power.
Kennedy’s report on Sept. 12 said administration will continue to update council as the project progresses.
Jenkins told the Albertan on Sept. 27 that once additional project studies are completed, and if the town needs to proceed with the direct user connection option, council will be advised and the project will be a capital budget item for 2023.
