Province’s biggest solar farm powers up

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This article was published 19/08/2020 (1884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Renewable energy and revenue alike are set to be generated at the biggest solar farm in Manitoba, which was powered up in Fisher River Cree Nation Wednesday.

“The goal of the Fisher River community is to become self-sufficient in terms of not relying so much on federal funding,” Fisher River Cree Nation Chief David Crate said.

The $2.4 million project was funded in part by the Fisher River community, which is around 200 kilometres north of Winnipeg and has around 2,000 members, and with $1 million in funding Western Economic Diversification Canada and a $750,000 loan from RBC. Fisher River also partnered with Indigenous-owned renewable energy firm W Dusk Energy Group Inc. and green energy provider Bullfrog Power.

The facility, which was built entirely by Indigenous employees, utilizes 3,000 solar panels and distributes energy into Manitoba Hydro’s power grid network, which will buy energy generated from the one-megawatt farm over a 20-year period. Crate said the First Nation is looking at around a 15-year loan repayment period.

The project was finished well ahead of schedule — solar panel installation took only five days and twelve community members were trained and certified in the process.

The discussion of building green energy projects in the Fisher River community is one that has been running for a long time, Crate said — about seven years — and Crate said the community is sowing a vested interest in clean energy into younger generations for the future.

“Our younger members may take an interest in getting into the green energy area — be it solar, wind, geothermal — and technology’s always evolving too, so we want to create that interest, especially with the younger people in the community,” he said.

The community was part of a pilot project with Manitoba Hydro and Aki energy to provide geothermal energy — a more sustainable substitute for fossil fuels — for heating and cooling homes. Out of the 500 residential units in the community, just over half are using geothermal energy.

“We were a wood-burning community, up until five, six years ago we harvested a lot of wood in the area, the majority of our homes have wood, electric furnaces,” he said.

“That’s not the case now. We’re not utilizing the forest like we used to, which is really good for the environment.”

Fisher River is undertaking a study right now to decide on its next sustainable project, Crate said, and said they will turn their focus on possibly powering commercial facilities using sustainable energy.

What Fisher River does can be replicated in communities across the province, Crate said, and it’s an opportunity to take up environmentally sustainable projects with a built-in revenue stream.

“It builds capacity in the community, because we now have a number of individuals trained in green energy, it’s also a source of revenue for the community,” he said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: malakabas_