Following a successful bid to SaskPower for a 25-year contract announced last year, Potentia Renewables has put the first shovel in the dirt on the site of the new wind power plant to be built just outside of Assiniboia.
The Golden South Wind Energy Facility is expected to be completed by 2020, taking up 34,000 acres of leased land with the 50 turbines and new substation.
The plant is expected to produce 200 megawatt hours of power annually, which is enough power to support approximately 90,000 homes. All of the power generated will be fed directly onto the main grid for the province, purchased at a rate that is the lowest in North America.
Construction will begin within the next two weeks, employing around 250 personnel during the build. Once finished, the project will require between 10 and 12 permanent employees to operate.
Jeff Jenner, CEO of Potentia Renewables, noted that the Golden South facility is strategically located to minimize the environmental effects on the area.“We're very happy to see a facility like this to come in, and this is the first of probably several over the next decade,” said Marsh.
SaskPower will be purchasing the wind energy as it is produced on the 25-year contract, at a rate of 3 cents per kilowatt hour — comparable to coal produced energy, which averages about 5 cents per kilowatt hour.
“We can build wind in sufficient quantities at a low price now, so wind is actually the easiest and the cheapest [renewable resource],” said Marsh. “We want to take advantage of the competitive market and try to get as much wind energy as we can in the next decade.”
SaskPower’s venture into wind power is part of the Prairie Resilience initiative set forward by the government in 2017, which aims to reduce the province’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent by 2030.
Due to federal regulations, SaskPower must retire two coal-fired stations by 2024, and Marsh indicated that wind energy will supplant that gap in production.
Golden South is the largest wind power plant contracted with SaskPower in the province, joining the Blue Hill Wind Energy Project being developed by Algonquin Power Co. south of Herbert.
Assiniboia’s mayor Bob Himbeault couldn’t be happier with the development.
“We can say we have the largest wind farm in the province,” said Himbeault. “We’re very excited and I’m very pleased that Potentia just kept bidding on this project, and that SaskPower rewarded them for their efforts.”
SaskPower is expected to begin taking bids on another utility-scale wind project sometime this year. Upon completion of both wind plant projects already in motion, wind energy will comprise of about 4.5 per cent of SaskPower’s total energy capacity.
