By Dave Cooper, Edmonton Journal
Greengate Power Corp. has placed an order worth about $500 million for 166 Vestas wind turbines for its planned Blackspring Ridge 1 wind farm near Lethbridge.
The project will have a capacity of 300 megawatts, making it the largest in Canada when it goes into commercial operation in 2013. Construction is expected to start in 2012.
The supply and long-term service and maintenance contract is with Vestas-Canadian Wind Technology, the local arm of the Danish-based global leader in wind turbines.
Calgary-based Greengate also plans to start construction soon on its 150-megawatt Halkirk 1 project east of Stettler, which will be Alberta's largest wind project until Blackspring opens.
Since the unregulated electricity market in Alberta offers prices too low to make Halkirk and Blackspring economic, both are being built to take advantage of California's renewable energy credits program.
Pacific Gas and Electric said in February it would buy all 450 MW of power for 20 years from the projects, but not take delivery of the power. Instead, the electricity will flow into the Alberta grid, which is part of the Western continental system.
With the interest shown by PG&E, Greengate was able to raise $14.3 million, largely from three California investment firms -NGEN Partners, SAM Private Equity and the Westly Group, all leading clean-tech investors.
At the time of the PG&E deal, Greengate chief executive Dan Balaban said California had been pretty consistent in leading the world in green initiatives and green policy.
"The renewable-portfolio standard requires utilities to source 20 per cent of their power from renewable sources, and that grows to 33 per cent by 2020."
To meet those new standards, the utilities have to source a significant amount of renewable power.
"California made the decision that it would allow up to 25 per cent of the renewable power to come from out of state.
"And the discussion has been where the limit will be for out-ofstate power, which actually helps keep the cost down for the ratepayers of California because it is more expensive to develop there, so they went out of state for some," Balaban added.
Greengate hopes to eventually develop 1,550 MW of wind energy projects on more than 80,000 hectares of private land in Alberta.
Retrieved from http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Greengate+orders+wind+turbines/4930642/story.html
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