(Innisfail, Alberta) A small main street that has seen better days, a railway line which passes in front of the town hall, some 8,000 inhabitants surrounded by plains… At first glance, nothing distinguishes Innisfail from the string of small rural municipalities which border Highway 2 between Edmonton and Calgary. However, a real energy revolution is taking place there.
Municipal employees are no longer the only ones working for taxpayers. The roofs of city hall, the fire station and the curling center also do their part. A large field in the northwest of the city too. And soon, another site in the southwest of the city, where the former municipal sewage lagoon has been converted into an industrial park. All thanks to solar energy.
Solar panels installed on municipal buildings generate electricity, which is useful for reducing bills, but also for generating carbon credits. The sale of these credits should bring in between $7,000 and $10,000 net per year over the next 10 years, the City estimates.
The solar panels installed on municipal land in northwest Innisfail belong to Elemental Energy, a Vancouver company. Following Highway 54 through the fields, you can see some of them shimmering in the sun.
Elemental Innisfail is a large commercial solar farm with a production capacity of 22 MW.
The company signed a 35-year lease to use the land. The municipality derives three sources of annual revenue from it. Beyond the rent (around $12,000), the agreement brings in more than $235,000 in property taxes, a significant contribution in a municipality which has seen its population increase by barely 2% since 2016. Elemental pays also a community contribution of $20,000 to the City, which helps support various projects.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE CITY OF INNISFAIL
Innisfail Mayor Jean Barclay
We had this land which will not be developed for four or five decades. Why not put something there that can provide a good source of income?
Jean Barclay, Mayor of Innisfail
Innisfail, however, had to play the pioneer role. When Elemental officially announced the project in fall 2019, the province had only one commercial solar farm in production, which was owned by the same company. Not easy to negotiate. “It wasn’t easy, because there was only one other one, in Newell County, near Brooks. We were the second, but the first in an urban area, so for the administration, it was very difficult to obtain data and find details on anything,” summarizes Mayor Jean Barclay, met in the room advice.
The model was a hit. At least ten Alberta municipalities today collect municipal taxes from solar energy producers on their territory, for nearly $4.5 million in annual revenue, shows the analysis carried out by BRC-Canada, affiliated with the Pembina Institute, for the year 2022. And many other projects are in the pipeline.
Innisfail has taken the energy experiment a step further, and developed its own solar farm project to sell electricity to the grid.
The land formerly occupied by its municipal sewage lagoon became an industrial park, but a few acres could not be rehabilitated sufficiently to accommodate buildings.
The municipality plans to install a small solar power plant of around 2 MW there, a $4 million project which will absorb almost half of its 2024 investment budget.
All that is missing is the green light from the Alberta Utilities Commission (a sort of Alberta energy authority) to start construction. The plant, Mayor Barclay hopes, will come into operation by the end of the year.
The electricity will be sold to Fortis, which owns 60% of the province’s distribution network. Innisfail expects to generate about $600,000 in revenue per year, and another $10,000 from the sale of carbon credits.
For a small town of just under 8,000 inhabitants, this is considerable. In Innisfail, every $100,000 in additional revenue equates to an increase in the property tax rate of about one percentage point.
Beyond their environmental aspect, these solar projects respond above all to economic imperatives, says the mayor.
“We emphasize revenue generation because our municipal toolboxes are very limited,” recalls Jean Barclay. The solar project is beneficial for residents and the community, because it will help limit tax increases. »