Premier Redford visits Ikea wind farm project

Premier Alison Redford at Ikea wind farm site south of Heritage Acres

Chris Davis

Alberta Premier Alison Redford visited Pincher Creek and area on Wednesday February 12. One of her stops was to Ikea's new wind farm project adjacent to Heritage Acres northeast of town. With her was Associate Minister for Electricity and Renewable Energy Donna Kennedy-Glans.

Once completed the project will be sold to Ikea by developer Alberta Wind Energy Corp.  That is expected to occur mid-August, at which point the 20 turbine, 50 megawatt farm is scheduled to go online, to produce a projected 161 gigawatt hours (GWh) per year.  This is Ikea's first major wind investment in North America, but the company has been buying wind power from Pincher Creek for years, according to a sign in their Calgary store.  This installation is projected to generate twice the power required by Ikea's 12 Canadian stores.

I asked Premier Redford what the purpose of her visit was.  "I've had the opportunity all day today to be in Lethbridge and Pincher Creek," she replied.  This was one of several stops on her itinerary.  "I wanted to visit town and county councils just to see how we're doing in terms of partnership between the provincial government and all the elected officials."

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Marc Stachiw, Jack Jansenn, Premier Redford at windmill site with Heritage Acres backdrop

You know that Pincher Creek is quite unique in the fact that the partnership between county and town is so strong, with so many joint projects around. Things like seniors housing, I had the opportunity to visit some of them here today. Take a look at the school announcements, of course, that have been made in the last couple weeks. It's really exciting that in this province of 4 million people that as people move to Alberta, they aren't all moving to Calgary and Edmonton. They are moving to Pincher Creek and Lethbridge, and small communities. So we want to sure that we're creating as many opportunities as we can, and the best way to do that is to partnership with other elected officials."

"You know that we have Donna Kennedy-Glans, who's the Associate Minister of Renewables and Sustainables. The reason for that is because we think in Alberta it's important to tell the story of what our public/private partnerships can look like. the energy, whether it's sustainable/renewable energy or some of our more conventional production will only survive with proper investment and long term planning. "

"That's one of the reasons that I've asked Donna Kennedy for plans to take on that responsibility to make sure we're putting in place the right investment climate that's going to allow for people to make those long term decisions."

"First of all, if you just look around you at these incredible fields, we see agriculture being critical to Alberta's future."

"As we continue to grow and become the economic engine of the country, it's not all about oil and gas.  It's about agriculture, and the $77 billion per year that we contribute to the Canadian economy. This part of the world is the breadbasket not only for existing markets around the world, and over the next 10 to 15 years most of the exporting out of Canada is going to be coming from southern Alberta."

Premier Redford with parting gift: a Wind Turbine model kit

Premier Redford toured the inside of a turbine.  Slowly the blades stopped, even as the rumours whirled.  I asked her afterward if it was true she'd asked permission to shut off the turbine.  "I would not presume that I could pause it, they suggested that I could, and there's a little red button that says 'pause', so I pushed that button, and it went back on track."  So anybody could do it? "If a girl like me did, I think you could too."

AltaLink's Leigh Clarke, Premier Redford; NA Power Generation's Marc Stachiw, Associate Minister for Electricity and Renewable Energy Donna Kennedy-Glans; NA Power Generation's Stewart Duncan, Altalink's Jack Janssen

Alberta Wind and NA Power Generation CEO Stewart Duncan and Vice President Marc J Stachiw were on hand for the Premier's visit.  Stachiw explained the project.  "Mainstream (Mainstream renewable Power) is our joint-venture partner, its their Siemens turbines that we're putting up, 2.3 megawatt Siemens turbines (model SWT-2.3-101)."  He pointed out where the 20 turbines will be erected, and pointed out the the batch plant for the concrete that will be required.  "We've been working on it. Alberta wind energy was the original developer, so it was a nine year project from start to finish. We sold our interest to Mainstream a couple of months ago. Mainstream is now building the project and will transfer it to Ikea upon completion. Ikea will be the long term owner of the project."

"I happen to agree with their view that power prices are going to go up over the long term, but also you have the intangible aspect of it, green power, letting their customers know that they are environmentally responsible, and all those sorts of things as well.  I think it's a good mandate, from Ikea's perspective, and from an economic perspective, and from a marketing perspective. It's kind of a win-win for them."

"For us, we've got the project built. It's been a long road, there've been a lot of challenges in getting the project built, it's nice to see bases going in and turbines going up before summer."

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