The winds of change are coming to area schools – literally. By 2014, when you flick a light switch at Barrhead Composite High School or fire up a computer you may well be using wind-driven electricity.
The winds of change are coming to area schools – literally.
By 2014, when you flick a light switch at Barrhead Composite High School or fire up a computer you may well be using wind-driven electricity.
The power will probably be generated by winds turning turbine blades about 430 km away near Provost, central Alberta.
Welcome to the green revolution, welcome to the future for our schools … and possibly other public organizations in the district.
At the end of June, Pembina Hills school division board agreed to take part in the Bull Creek Wind Power Project and no longer rely on Calgary-based Enmax for energy.
The seven trustees voted unanimously for PHRD to buy electricity from the project for 25 years, 2014-2038. They hope the move will reduce the board's exposure to volatile energy prices.
It is believed to be the area's first step towards wind power, although not towards alternative energy.
Several years ago Barrhead County installed a grid-connected solar system at its building.
Currently the Bull Creek project is just that, a project. Calgary-based BluEarth Renewables wants to build 46 wind turbines 20 km northeast of Provost and 60 km southeast of Wainwright in East Central Alberta. There will be access roads, power lines, a transformer station and an operations facility.
The site is a mosaic of cultivated cropland, pasture and treed areas. According to BluEarth, the project has a proposed capacity up to 115 megawatts; it would be able to generate enough renewable energy to power 30,000-35,000 homes and help Alberta meet its future needs with clean, renewable energy.
The company says three years of data suggests the site would be excellent for wind power development.
Construction is planned for 2013, with commercial operations under way by Jan. 1, 2014. However, BluEarth must first get approval from the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) and permits from local municipalities.
Public consultation meetings took place in Wainwright and Provost in March, 2012.
Until Aug. 31, subscription to the project is limited to Alberta schools and other groups that have signed non-binding letters of intent.
The project will be open to other public entities on a first come first served basis until Sept. 30. It will be closed once the entire energy production is sold.
PHRD is not the only Alberta school board charting a green course. It is part of a Commodity Purchasing Consortia (CPC), under which many boards aggregate their energy consumption and seek to dictate power contracting.
The CPC school boards are now looking to expand this contracting strategy into the area of wind farms.
PHRD's assistant secretary treasurer Grant Widdup said the Alberta Schools Wind Power Project made sense financially, as well as from an environmental and sustainability perspective.
Wind power offered long-term cost predictability because there was no fuel price risk, he said. By reducing exposure to price volatility it kept dollars in the classroom.
"When the school board budgets for power consumption, the project will allow for better forecasting without worrying about the fluctuations that have happened in the power industry in the past few years, where we have had power spikes and at times higher than expected energy costs," he said.
Although Widdup could not talk in dollars and cents about wind-generated electricity prices, he said they would be around the market rates, if not below.
He added there was also an investment opportunity under the partnership between CPC and BluEarth, allowing participants to invest in the project to a maximum of 25 per cent of total equity. Each member would earn its proportionate share of project revenues.
Widdup said the CPC was working with Alberta Education to obtain Ministerial approval for such investment.
Details of the investment offer are expected to be announced this fall.
Another spin-off from project participation would be Green Electricity Certificates (GEC), said Widdup.
For every megawatt hour of clean, renewable electricity produced and injected into the grid, a GEC is created to represent positive environmental benefits, he added.
The value of the GEC, said Widdup, would further reduce the net cost of electricity from the project.
What would happen if no winds blew down at the project site?
Widdup said there'll always be the fallback of "brown electricity" in the local grid – coal or gas-produced power – if winds failed to blow.
Although wind seems to promise a carbon-free, inexhaustible and benign source of energy, it has not been immune from controversy.
Anti-wind advocates say there are anecdotal reports that people are suffering from a range of symptoms because of wind turbine noise. They have called for more research into the issue.
Widdup said he did not believe the Bull Creek project was close to people's properties.
He also said similar projects had proved successful, suggesting wind power was a viable option.
PHRD chairman Sharon Volorney said price stability over many years was the primary reason the board entered into the project.
"It sounds like a good deal," she said. "Quite a few school boards are participating."
Volorney said environmental considerations were another attractive aspect to wind power.
She added PHRD had enjoyed great financial benefits from the Commodity Purchasing Consortia.
"It has served us very well," she said.
BluEarth's lead regulator Tyler Jans said Jan. 1, 2014 was the target date for operations.
He added a facilities application for the wind project had been made to the AUC. If approval is given, building can proceed.
Jans said the project site was about 15 kilometres from the nearest residences in Provost.
Chairman of Alberta Schools Community Purchasing Consortium, Francois Gagnon, said about 50 school boards had expressed an interest in the wind power project.
He added that the AUC could take up to a year to review the application, which was submitted in May. The process involved reviewing environmental studies.
Gagnon said any GECs accrued by school boards from the project were marketable. They could be retained or sold, he said.
