A new solar garden is being constructed in Wallaceburg, on a PUC-owned property.
R&D Energy Solutions has been contracted to install 40 solar panels on the site owned by the Chatham-Kent Public Utilities Commission.
It is located at the corner of Base Line Road and Baldoon Road, down the road from the dog park and across from Tab’s Recycling.
Dean Martin, president of R&D Energy Solutions, said a solar garden is small in comparison to a solar park.
“A solar park, for example going out towards Sarnia, is big,” he said. “A solar garden is a 500 kW solar project.There was a lot of grid constraint projects back a few years ago. Part of what the government came up with to help correct that was to group a number of constraint projects into one area, so they can just connect to the one point. For example the one in Wallaceburg, there was 40 microFITS relocated to that one connecting point.”
Martin said it’s a win/win situation.
“The Wallaceburg site is one project that got re-located,” Martin said. “Part of that was due to the government wanting to protect its class 1, 2 and 3 land, or more fertile land. What they said was you can put it on land that has a secondary purpose. The primary purpose in this case is a water lagoon. The secondary purpose is using land that the water lagoon isn’t using. A lot of municipalities, what they do when they find a site for a lagoon is they will have extra land, just in case the city grows and they can grow the lagoon with it. A lot of cities in southwestern Ontario haven’t grown that much, so there was extra land at the PUC.”
Martin added: “The PUC looked at it as a way of getting lease revenue on land they are currently not doing anything with. It’s basically a win/win for both sides, because the PUC has revenue coming in for lease and the customer finds a spot to put the solar and doesn’t have to take up any valuable agricultural land away.”
Martin said the project is about a month away from completion.
“The project is a little bit more than half done, ” he said. “We’re waiting for the weather, a little bit of rain puts you behind a few days. We have to get a crane in there to finish up the top work we are doing. Once that is done we’re going to start our trenching.”
Martin said this projects is a part of the Ontario Power Authority decision to help with the grid constraint problems from a few years ago.
It was part of the microFIT program… when we put all those microFIT programs together it created a FIT program,” Martin said. “This project is a 400 kW AC project… whatever power is produced is put back into the grid and sold at whatever rate the contract is at.”
Martin added: “I think it’s a good thing, it’s a win/win. Hopefully the revenue the PUC gets in can go against the rates, I’m not going to say people are going to get a credit, but it will go towards the PUC, which is only going to help things. It’s a win/win for everybody.”
Tom Kissner, the general manager of the PUC, confirmed with us that the land was being leased out.
Both Martin and Kissner chose not tell the Sydeanham Current the name of the person/company who is leasing the land from the PUC.
Here are some photos of the site construction:
