Work on the Fox Coulee Solar Project is slated to commence this fall.
The project is to construct and operate a 75 megawatts solar power plant with battery storage north of Drumheller in Starland County near the airport. It will consist of solar photovoltaic modules mounted on racks. It will be sited on approximately 380 acres of land and will be connected to the ATCO Electric feeder lines through underground lines.
The project was approved by the Alberta Utilities Commission in the summer of 2019, but like many projects, COVID-19 brought hurdles.
“Right now we are working our way through the supply chain and COVID and all the delays that have happened there,” Victor Beda of Aura Power Renewables tells the Mail. “The industry is slowly getting back into a functional model. Things are starting back up and the challenge is still getting all the bits and pieces.”
He said they are planning to break ground and start work in September or October.
“We are doing some preliminary site work this fall and we will keep moving through the winter and finish it off in the spring,” he said.
“We were always eager to move ahead, but we just couldn’t with all that was happening in the world, but now we are in a different stage of the game.”
He said preliminary site work includes some geotechnical work, and building the fence, roadways and installing the collector stations.
The piles will happen in the new year, depending on the weather.
“People are in transition, and they are a lot of people looking for what to do next, it’s a transitional period for everybody, so why not think about how we consume our energy. Before the pandemic hit, we saw some of the things we saw in oil and gas, which has been suffering for many years. I think people are thinking now what they are going to do with their career, their lives moving forward, let’s go ahead and do something that is worthwhile and for the long term,” he said.
“We’ve already seen the price of renewable energy come down to unprecedented levels, and it is still projecting down. We have great potential for building something sustainable and great for Alberta.”
