Winds of change coming to B.C. energy sector
Marke Andrews,
CanWest News Service;
Vancouver Sun
August 11, 2006
VANCOUVER - Dokie Wind Energy Inc. received provincial environmental certification Thursday to build British Columbia's first wind power project, a facility that will produce 180 megawatts in northeast B.C.
The project still requires road permits and land leases from the provincial government.
Dokie Wind Energy Inc., located in Victoria, plans to build more than 100 wind turbines, each generating 1.5 to 2 MW of wind energy, plus two substations in a 300-hectare area located in the Rocky Mountain foothills about 40 kilometres west of Chetwynd, B.C., and 40 kilometres southwest of Hudson's Hope, B.C. It will be south of the WAC Bennett Dam, and use existing transmission lines from the dam.
The facility has the capacity to house 200 turbines generating 300 MW, enough to power 100,000 households with power. The first phase estimated to cost $400 million Phase 1, however, calls for turbines to supply 180 MW, enough to service 53,000 households with 530 gigawatthours annually.
Dokie Wind Energy Inc. will sell its power to B.C. Hydro, which will transmit it though its power grid.
The project is expected to take less than two years to build. As one of the 38 independent power-producer projects approved by B.C. Hydro on July 27 three of them involving wind power the Dokie Wind Energy facility must be delivering power by the end of 2009.
Dokie president Ron Percival said he hopes to begin construction next year.
The project will provide 300 construction jobs and permanent jobs for 30 operations employees.
''Wind energy is the fastest growing power sector worldwide, for its many compelling benefits,'' said Percival. ''It's clean and renewable fuel, and has a very small impact on the environment, and wind is compatible with other land uses around it.''
In the past five years, the wind energy sector has grown worldwide at an average rate of 15.8 per cent per year. The top three wind energy nations in the world are Germany, Spain and the U.S.
The environmental assessment certificate has 22 environmental management plans and 43 commitments that Dokie Wind Energy must fulfil, including monitoring the effects on birds and bats, a surface erosion prevention plan, well water monitoring and operational noise monitoring.
Percival said the impact on birds is very small that ''the average wind turbine would have less impact than a housecat, which is about 2.5 birds a year.''
The computer-controlled turbines, which must be built in a location with an average annual wind speed exceeding 20 kilometres an hour, will be located in single rows on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountain foothills facing the wind, on wind-swept ridges 1,400 to 1,600 metres in elevation. They capture the kinetic energy and pass that on to a generator.
While the environmental assessment was based on a maximum capacity of 300 MW, Percival said the 180-MW Phase 1 ''is all that may ever be built there. For us to increase the capacity (to 300 MW), we would have to bid a separate project.''
LINKS:
http://www.dokiewind.com/
http://www.earthfirstenergy.com/
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/July2006/27/c9821.html
http://www.eao.gov.bc.ca/new-website/homepages/dokie/dokie-home.htm
http://www.eao.gov.bc.ca/epic/output/html/deploy/epic_project_home_256.html