Medicine Hat solar park budget timeline not certain as analysis work begins

Work has begun on the design, layout and structure of the project, according to the city’s director of energy marketing and business analysis Travis Tuchscherer.

The project fully-built out would produce 325 megawatts for a farm in the city’s north end. The city’s plan is to take a phased approach, starting with 75 megawatts.

Staff expect to come before council to get approval on a plan for building the solar farm and a budget to go along with it.

Tuchscherer on Monday said he anticipates the price tag to be about $120 million, but cautioned that number is “very subject to change.”

“We’re looking at different transmission connections, different funding structures, partnerships,” said Tuchscherer.

“We’re looking at all the different options to see what makes the most sense for this project.”

He said it took the City of Medicine Hat longer than anticipated to get the required Alberta Utilities Commission approval for an ownership transfer, pushing back the overall timeline.

Tuchscherer said having shovels in the ground — should the project get council and AUC approval — is not likely to happen next year.

“I think 2026 might be pushing (it),” he said.

However, there are deadlines attached to the existing permit approval from the Alberta Utilities Commission.

“I believe it was early 2027,” the city’s energy head Rochelle Pancoast said in February.

In order for the city to work within the timelines, it will first need to get approval from the commission to cut the size of the project down to 75 megawatts from the original DP Energy proposal of 325 megawatts.

That AUC process could include a hearing if public participants apply for intervenor status.

The Medicine Hat Utility Ratepayers Association, who applied to oppose the solar project transfer when the project was last before the AUC, has called for the city to dump Saamis Solar.

The association’s president Sounantha Boss confirmed to CHAT News that her group has a meeting scheduled with the city for April 15.

MHURA, an advocacy group that formed in response to skyrocketing utility rates in 2023, has claimed the city isn’t being transparent about what the solar project will cost taxpayers.

Pancoast and other city officials have reiterated several times that more information would be released once the project was bought from DP Energy and the city could do its own analysis.

The association says its own third-party research shows the solar farm won’t be profitable and only cost taxpayers more money, despite repeated insistence from city hall that it will not move forward if it doesn’t make sense.

“We don’t plan on recommending a build unless the financial numbers support doing a build,” Pancoast said in October.

City officials say they are taking a cautious approach.

“It’s a unique time where there’s a lot of decisions that are still being held out there,” Tuchscherer said.

“We’re looking for the restructured energy market decision to come forward. We’re looking for the federal election and their carbon policy to come forward,” he added.

“So there’s some big steps of uncertainty that we want to keep this option open and allow us to see what comes of those before we make a decision and move forward with the project.”

The property where the Saamis Solar farm is proposed for was formally home to a decommissioned fertilizer plant operated by Canadian Fertilizers Ltd. Part of the area is considered contaminated and couldn’t be used for many developments.

DP Energy secured development rights to the site in 2017, signing a long-term lease agreement with Viterra.

The company acquired a development permit in August 2021 and received approval from the AUC in July 2024 to construct and operate the project.

The City of Medicine Hat is already undergoing an era of major transition for the electricity and gas businesses it owns.

It’s currently considering recommendations to create a municipally-controlled, arms-length corporation to run the businesses, establishing a rate review board and selling off its gas production division.

Pancoast presented a broad energy strategy in 2024 that outlined the challenges the city is facing amid a decline in gas and electricity revenues amid a national transition towards renewable sources.

Pancoast has said the solar park is a piece of the energy puzzle.

“It certainly fits within that in terms of wanting to make sure that we are working in the best interests of serving our local electrical customers,” she said in February.

by Olivia Thorington

Medicine Hat solar park budget timeline not certain as analysis work begins

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