Grand Manan eyes wind farm to supply all of island’s power

By this time next year, Grand Manan should be the first Canadian community to have its energy demands met entirely by renewable resources. Eastern Wind Power of Quispamsis, N.B., plans to install 20 megawatts of generating capacity in the spring of 2006 at its Dark Harbour Wind Farm, consisting of 10 wind turbines, each capable of producing 2 megawatts of electricity.

"It was our hope to see the turbines up by the end of this year," says Paul Woodhouse, president of Eastern Wind Power, "but we have had some delays, and we are now targeting spring 2006 for turbine supply." Woodhouse explains that last September, a few days before Eastern Wind signed an agreement with New Brunswick Power, legislation was passed in the United States to encourage construction of wind farms, and that "created a huge demand for turbines."

That bill, part of H.R. 1308, was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 4, 2004. Known as the wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), it allows for a 1.9 cent-per-kilowatt-hour tax credit for electricity generated with wind turbines over the first 10 years of a project's operations. Scheduled to expire at the end of this year, it was recently extended to the end of 2007.

While Woodhouse is pleased this is spurring the installation of more renewable energy, he admits that "it has hampered the availability of turbines and increased pricing, of course." However, he fully expects to be able to publicly announce who will be their turbine supplier before the end of this year and have those turbines installed and "in the air" by next summer.

In the fall of 2004 Eastern Wind Power signed a $90-million, 20-year deal to sell energy from its Grand Manan wind power operation to New Brunswick Power. The company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Western Wind Energy Corp. of Coquitlam, B.C., was selected in June 2004 from a group of five companies that responded to an NB Power request for renewable energy proposals.

Woodhouse admits their parent company is involved in bigger projects, but they are still committed to Grand Manan, while at the same time continuing development efforts in California and Arizona. "Among its other activities, Western Wind Energy has completed the purchase of an operating wind farm in Tehachapi, California. This wind farm will have to have the older turbines replaced with newer, more efficient ones within the year."

To date, a significant portion of the access roads for the wind farm have been built on the plateau above Dark Harbour, and some additional ground work is currently under way. "We anticipate that the island's entire energy needs will be met by the wind farm," says Woodhouse. "In other words, the energy output from the farm will approximately match the energy use in Grand Manan over a year, making it the only truly green-powered municipality in Canada."

Eastern Wind Power's binding agreement with the province calls for selling 20 megawatts of electricity to NB Power, with power in excess of the island's requirements to be exported via a sub-sea cable to the mainland. This same cable will draw power from the mainland grid when the wind turbines are not producing the six to eight megawatts required by the island.

The province of New Brunswick recently confirmed its commitment to renewable energy in the form of a Renewable Energy Portfolio, and NB Power has followed suit with its own commitment to purchase 400 megawatts of renewable energy before 2016. It will eventually get environmental credits for using more renewable energy, with the federal government soon to require all utilities to have a certain percentage of their power coming from renewable resources.

"Eastern Wind Power is committed to long-term wind energy benefits for New Brunswickers, and we look forward to a showcase project on Grand Manan," says Woodhouse. "So, although construction has taken longer than expected, Grand Manan will soon be able to say that all her energy needs have been produced right here on the island."