By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Innisfail town council backs solar farm proposal

Jan 30, 2018 | 3:14 PM

If all goes according to plan, solar energy could be powering all homes in Innisfail by the end of 2019.

This week, Innisfail town council provided a letter of intent to Temporis Developments, who is looking to construct a 70 acre solar farm on public land just north of the Innisfail Golf Club.

The letter will allow the developer to apply for the proper licensing from the Alberta Utilities Commission. The parties involved, which also includes Bilton Welding, hope to have a lease agreement done up by the end of March.

The proposed solar farm would provide between 15-20 megawatts to the overall power grid, enough to power 3000-4000 homes. Innisfail had 3800 homes as of 2016.

“It is big. We’ll be one of the first urban municipalities with a solar farm within our boundaries,” says Todd Becker, CAO for the Town of Innisfail. “It is council’s new mission to be innovative and sustainable, the logo of the town is a sun, so it has tremendous marketing ability for the community and some economic spinoff in terms of jobs during the construction phase.”

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As proposed, The Town would receive $500/acre in rent yearly, adding up to $35,000. It would also collect the property taxes, and the developer would contribute annually to a community endowment fund at $1000 per megawatt.

Currently, The Town rakes in $6000 per year in rent through an agricultural lease on that land, but Becker doesn’t see any conflict in moving on from that agreement.

“We were keen to try and do a project which got the community involved as much as possible,” says Robbie Donaldson, Managing Director with Temporis.

“There’s a huge amount of activity in developing this type of project. There is only one other project of this nature operational in Alberta, and that’s the Brooks solar project. That’s’ pretty comparable to what we’re proposing.”

In total, there are 73 solar projects across Alberta either going through the pre-construction process.

Capital costs of the solar farm range from $20-24 million with the company spending a half million each year on operating and bringing in $2 million in revenue. It’s believed any pact to be reached would be for 20 or 25 years.

According to Donaldson, the cost of installing solar photovoltaic technology has reduced by 10 per cent every year since the industry began.

“One of the reasons why solar projects like this are becoming so popular is technologically, they’re very reliable, therefore to a lot of funding sources, like institutional investors, they’re really attractive pieces of infrastructure,” Donaldson adds. “They don’t really break down, this is a low-risk venture.”

Donaldson also noted there are no environmental or habitat concerns, nor any related to noise or sight lines. And if The Town ever decided to move on or for whatever reason in the future the solar farm is moved, Donaldson adds it’s very straightforward in terms of reinstating the land.

Community consultations could potentially happen this summer with construction possibly beginning in May 2019.

Related: Solar array near Brooks expected to power 3000 homes