INNISFAIL – In spite of a current provincial moratorium on all new renewable electricity generation projects the town’s mayor is in Edmonton this week to pitch the merits of its planned multi-million dollar municipal solar farm to Nathan Neudorf, the provincial minister of affordability and utilities.
“We sent a letter to different ministers and the premier and it got to his desk and his office reached out to see if we would like to meet with him,” said Barclay. “We tried to do it at the Alberta Municipalities conference but he got called away to a meeting in Calgary while we were there. We rescheduled for October 30.”
Barclay was joined by members of town council and Todd Becker, the town’s chief administrative officer, to meet with Neudorf, whose office was front and centre with the provincial government’s Aug. 3 announcement to bring in a seven-month moratorium on all new renewable electricity generation projects.
The plan was not to approve any applications until March of 2024 but applications could still move forward while the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC), which regulates gas, electricity, and water utilities, conducts an inquiry this fall. The commission is expected to then make recommendations for new regulations.
“We want to inform him about the project here; the fact that it is a brownfield (reclaimed) site not prime ag land, and it's owned by the municipality. It's not owned privately,” said Barclay. “We would like to try to get some insight as to what the path forward is like. Do we keep going through this process and get our application into AUC?
“And because they will still take the applications, they just won't approve them until this inquiry is finished,” added Barclay. “The hope is really to inform him of what this project in Innisfail is and the impact it has on our revenue generation.”
At Innisfail’s council’s Agenda & Priorities Meeting on Oct. 16, Steven Kennedy, the Town of Innisfail’s director of operational services, gave council an update on the solar farm project’s application, approval and design process.
He said the municipal solar farm plan, which has been considered and worked on for about 18 months, still has to deal with the constraints of the moratorium while continuing its phased development process.
“Even with this delay, the project could still be completed and operational by the fall of 2024,” Kennedy told council.
Kennedy said the town could see potential annual revenues of about $600,000.
He told council the total price tag is now estimated to be between $3.5 and $4 million, which does not include any offsite connection and upgrade costs from FORTIS or AltaLink.
Council was told the multi-million dollar expenditure will require another debenture, similar to the one council approved in July of 2022 to secure a loan of $5.5 million to finance the development of the Southwest Industrial Park.
The two large scale investments are expected to be fully offset by the revenues generated by current land sales.
Along the way council decided to go into General Capital Reserves to pay for the solar farm project’s phases and studies.
Back in September of 2022 council approved two phases of the six-phase 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.
At the Oct. 16 meeting council was also told that process included a number of tasks required to meet the AUC approval checklist.
Kennedy informed council the items that have been completed to date include:
• preliminary site layout;
• noise impact assessment;
• solar glare assessment;
• draft emergency response plan; and
• draft neighbourhood mailout letter.
Through his report Kennedy added there were also a trio of items still underway that would be completed by the end of this year, including a detailed study by FORTIS, as well as interconnection and Alta Link Transmission studies.
He said items that needed to be completed to submit the AUC application include a notification to the stakeholders within the immediate adjacent area, and a recommendation from administration to hold off until the 2024 municipal budget is approved.
Council approved a motion on Oct. 16 to approve Kennedy’s project update as information.
