Premier Smith says rooftop panels are the ‘best opportunity’ as Medicine Hat aims to buy solar farm

It was not immediately clear if that was a local organization and if they were creating such a plan for the city.

Medicine Hat revealed in late August its intent to purchase the Saamis Solar Park project.

DP Energy, the Ireland-based company behind the project, says the solar farm will create enough energy to power 250,000 homes when it’s complete.

It would be largest urban solar initiative in North America, according to DP Energy. About half of the 1,600-acre project site is made up of a contaminated brownfield site in the city’s north end.

If successful, the project will mark a major step by Medicine Hat to diversify its taxpayer-owned electricity generation business and prepare for a future of increased fossil fuel levies.

City staff say the purchase will allow the city to scale up the project gradually in a way where it can meet the needs of Medicine Hat and green energy requests from commercial customers.

The project is also expected to generate profit for Medicine Hat, according to the city’s managing director of energy, land and environment Rochelle Pancoast.

“Regardless of decarbonization targets, we expect that this project, if we do move forward and build, will contribute to our bottom line in a positive way,” Pancoast told CHAT News in August.

Pancoast in early September warned city council that it has several important decisions it must make about its energy future, ranging from non-renewable reclamation obligations to investment in clean energy.

Smith’s United Conservative government has said it aims to be cautious when it comes to renewable energy projects.

It placed a seven-month moratorium on new renewable energy projects before kickstarting what Smith called an “agriculture first” approach to regulating their locations.

Medicine Hat says investing in renewable energy projects presents an opportunity to offset increasing levies on non-renewable gas plants and prepare for a net-zero emission future.

Smith is hesitant about such initiatives.

“There are complexities when you do those kind of at-scale, large utility projects for both wind and solar,” the premier said after a business event at the Esplanade Heritage and Arts Centre last Thursday.

“Solar only works 10 per cent of the time just because of where we happen to be located and the fact that we’ve got low sun. And so it always needs a backup,” she added.

“We’ve said that we would like to make sure that we’re adding solar and wind in a responsible way to make sure that we’ve got the backup for when they’re not working.”

The Alberta government’s restrictions on wind and solar farms are more about limiting renewable energy than protecting the environment, conservationists say.

However, Smith has expressed interest in nuclear energy — used widely in Ontario — and her government has partnered with Saskatchewan to research its potential in western Canada.

Alberta has also invested $600,000 into a study to speed up bringing small modular reactors to Alberta.

During her time in Medicine Hat last week, Smith said during a town hall that a long-awaited new family physician pay deal would be announced “in the coming weeks” and revealed new details about a preliminary process for a provincial audit of city hall.

by Eli J. Ridder

Premier Smith says rooftop panels are the ‘best opportunity’ as Medicine Hat aims to buy solar farm

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