Medicine Hat looking to cash in on TONYA LAMBERT S
ince the Alberta government first announced its Climate Leadership Plan in 2015, municipalities and companies have been exploring the potential economic benefits of investing in renewable energy
projects. The government claims the development and operation of clean energy projects will create 7,200 jobs and inject $10.5 billion into the economy as the province strives to reach their 30 per cent by 2030 target.
“In the span of the last year-and-a-half,” says Walter Valentini, Executive Director, Palliser Economic Partnership, “there has been a rush on the part of renewable energy companies to get into the business. A lot of that goes back to government policy . . . and the fact that, in Alberta, we have a fair bit of wind and a fair bit of solar.”
Thanks to a forward-thinking municipal government, Medicine Hat is well-situated to take advantage of this new provincial interest in renewable energy. The city has been investing in renewable energy projects of varying scales since 2008 when it launched Hat Smart, a program designed to encourage individuals and companies to make their home or business more energy-efficient.
In 2014, the City’s solar thermal power plant went into production. It was the first of its kind in the country. That same year, the Box Springs Wind Farm, with its three two-megawatt wind turbines, was launched by the City and the Wind River Power Corporation. This was the first private-public partnership wind farm inside city limits in the country. Medicine Hat is also home to Western Canada’s largest freestanding roof-mounted solar array on top of the Ridge Professional Centre. With all these renewable energy initiatives, Mayor Ted Clugston has many reasons to call Medicine Hat “a provincial and national renewable energy innovation leader.”
With the City’s experience combined with the area’s long hours of sunshine and excellent wind resources, Medicine Hat and the Palliser region are attracting the attention of renewable energy companies from across Canada and North America. It is hoped that the provincial government’s new Renewable Electricity Program will provide the necessary incentive to propel some of these proposed projects to completion. The first round of bidding is underway; selected
renewable energy expansion
projects need to be completed by the end of 2019. This means the possible creation of hundreds of construction jobs in the region in the near future.
“During the construction phase for a 100-megawatt wind farm, you would probably be looking at 100-200 people required,” says Marc Stachiw, President, Alberta Wind Energy Corporation. “They are not all going to be local people because there are some specialized trades required for these projects. But there’s a considerable amount of local economic activity, such as building the roads, crane suppliers, even hotel staff and gas stations and all those things. To put it into perspective, a 100-megawatt wind farm would probably have a capital cost of in and around $200 million.”
Once a wind farm or solar farm is operational, staffing requirements are small. For example, a 100-megawatt wind farm would require about six permanent staff members, such as operators to maintain the turbines. As well, for the first few years, biologists and other scientists would be needed to carry out different environmental studies.
Ryan Jackson, Executive Director, Invest Medicine Hat says that the City is positioning itself as the perfect location for manufacturing and servicing renewable energy products due to its large number of engineers, fabricators and electricians. Indeed, if the testing and demonstration of Bluenergy Solarwind Canada Inc.’s UrbaVento™ Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (‘UV Turbine’) scheduled to take place at Medicine Hat College is successful, the company’s western Canadian assembly plant will likely become the city’s first renewable energy products plant.
“The ultimate goal is that these would be manufactured here in Medicine Hat,” says Clugston, “and then perhaps we could even have a technician program at the college to learn how to build and maintain them. But first, it is just a trial stage.”
The fifth-largest city in the province, Medicine Hat’s population and location make it ideal for production of renewable energy products.
There is ample reason to be optimistic about the region’s chances of securing a sizeable number of those 7,200 jobs that these projects are expected to create over the next 13 years. ❚
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