Achi news desk-
Alberta’s major utility has canceled a major wind energy project in response to new government rules on where such developments can be built.
TransAlta CEO John Kousinioris said Friday that the 300-megawatt Riplinger project near Cardston in southern Alberta will no longer proceed.
“We have reassessed our growth plans in the province,” he said in a conference call with analysts.
“(The project) has been affected by the new restrictions on development near protected areas and new views and will not be progressing. The project has been removed from our planned growth.”
TransAlta also wants to delay three other developments, as the government goes through a redesign of the province’s electricity market.
Those delays affect the 100-megawatt Tempest wind project south of Lethbridge, as does the 44-megawatt gas-fired Pinnacle generator west of Edmonton and the facility 180-megawatt WaterCharger battery storage near Cochrane.
“They have been delayed until we receive enough clarity,” said Kousinioris.
In February, the United Conservative Party government announced new rules on the development of renewable power in the province. They are placing a new 35-kilometer buffer zone around protected areas and what the government calls “new scenery.”
Riplinger would have been about 45 kilometers by road from Waterton National Park and about 55 kilometers from Lake Beauvais Provincial Park.
Kousinioris said the Riplinger project would have been on the edge of a restricted area.
The rules followed a seven-month moratorium on renewable energy approvals after the government decided the industry was growing too fast, threatening agriculture and ruining Alberta’s landscape.
Analysts argued that those restrictions were necessary, saying renewable energy was far down the list of threats to farmland.
This is the second setback this week for low-carbon energy production in Alberta.
Electricity generator Capital Power announced Wednesday it would cancel plans for a $2.4 billion carbon capture and storage project for its natural gas facility near Edmonton.
CEO Avik Dey said the cost of the project was too high and the regulatory environment around it too uncertain to justify going ahead.
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on May 3, 2024.
