French giant’s solar project raises hackles in Napanee
NAPANEE, ONT. Napanee is earning a distinction with which some citizens are uncomfortable: very big producer, per capita, of electricity.
The town of 16,000 already has the Lennox gas-fired electricity generating station on its waterfront. Next to that plant, Trans-Canada Corp. is building a new 900 megawatt gas-fired power plant — the very facility that Oakville did not want, and that the Ontario government cancelled in 2010, halfbuilt. Napanee also boasts two big solar installations: Little Creek and Sandhurst Shores.
On top of all this, Electricité de France, which calls itself the world’s electrician, has come knocking. The French giant wants to build a 60-megawatt solar project on 300 acres of farmland it will lease from three farmers.
The big solar plan has rankled some locals, particularly after the French firm paid neighbours for their support. The opposition in Napanee is a microcosm of the emotional discussions that ignite in small municipalities across Canada as big companies propose projects to fulfil government objectives for renewable energy.
“Someone needs to come out and show the municipalities why we should be giving up our prime farmland, in a dollars and cents way, so we can understand why it is the best thing for all,” says Marg Isbester, Napanee’s deputy mayor.
Last fall the Ontario government put out a request for proposals for 300 megawatts of wind power, 140 megawatts of solar power, 50 megawatts from bioenergy and 75 megawatts from water. The province will pay a maximum of 27.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for non-rooftop solar power.
The 42 qualified applicants have until next month to submit their proposals.
Electricité de France is no stranger to Canada: Last month it inaugurated the first phase of its Rivière du Moulin wind project in the Saguenay region north of Québec City, which on completion will be the biggest wind generation facility in Canada — 175 wind turbines producing 350 megawatts of electricity.
EDF’s Napanee project hit the front page of the Napanee Beaver last month after Janet Cruji wrote a letter to town council. Cruji said a man had come to see her mother and told her that her neighbours planned to put “a few” solar panels in their field, and asked her mother to sign a letter saying she would not dispute the project.
“Then an information letter came in the mail last week showing the large scale project covering hundreds of acres!!!!” Cruji wrote. “We were shocked to say the least and felt deceived. We have since learned that those who were not so quick to sign have been offered $2,500 over the next three years if they will also agree to sign this non dispute form.”
Cruji noted that until recently her grandfather grew corn on the land, which the family sold a few years ago. “This is the worst possible place to host Napanee’s newest solar project,” she writes.
Napanee town councillor Max Kaiser agrees with her. Kaiser farms 1,100 acres around the city, growing corn, soybeans and winter wheat, mainly to feed his 27,000 egg-laying hens.
He laments that the best farmland in Canada is now buried under cities. Kaiser supports solar energy: He has signed a contract to put solar panels on his chicken barns, which will produce 300 kilowatts of electricity. He simply does not want solar panels to cover good farm land.
“Put the solar panels over parking lots. Put ‘em over arenas, places where land has already been lost,” he says. “Three hundred acres is food for 300 or 350 people, lost in favour of charging their cellphones and laptops.”
EDF has offered to pay the town e $2,000 per megawatt per year to go toward community benefits, which the company says will add up to $60,000 to $120,000 a year. That is a better offer than the company has made previously. For example, EDF does not pay the City of Ottawa anything (other than commercial and industrial taxes) to host its sprawling Galetta solar project in the northern reaches of the city, near Arnprior.
Napanee council has set Aug. 18 for a meeting to vote on the French solar plan. Isbester says all but one local who has approached her oppose the solar installation. She has not yet made up her own mind.
“I still have a tough time saying to a landowner that they cannot do what they want with their land,” she said.