WINNIPEG (Reuters) — Athens-based Mytilineos Energy & Metals has asked the Alberta government to permit two solar projects partly on prime farmland and promised to continue crop production.
Company officials visited Alberta last week.
The province said earlier this year that it will ban renewable power projects on prime agricultural land and impose buffer zones to ensure wind turbines do not spoil scenic views. Alberta said it could make exceptions for power projects that prove agriculture can co-exist with power generation, and Mytilineos’s request is an early test of the new rules.
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Chair Evangelos Mytilineos said he told Alberta’s utilities and energy ministers during his visit to the province that he supported their restrictions, even though they make development more difficult, costly and time-consuming.
“They are going to give us some more headaches, but I told them this is the right way to do it because you have to apply strict rules to the grid transition before the situation gets totally out of hand and there is a real disaster of the natural beauty of the province.”
It is important Alberta clarifies the final rules quickly, he said, adding that the ministers told him that should happen by summer.
Mytilineos last year spent $1.7 billion to buy five solar projects, including projects initiated by Eastervale and Dolcy, two of which are on prime farmland, from Westbridge Renewable Energy. The projects, which Mytilineos wants to build between 2025 and 2028, would have capacity for 1.4 gigawatts, making Mytilineos one of Alberta’s biggest solar producers.
Until Alberta clarifies its rules, Mytilineos cannot advance its projects by securing buyers for its power, the chair said.
Alberta’s restrictions may affect 57 projects worth $14 billion, according to the Pembina Institute clean energy think-tank.
However, Mytilineos said big companies will continue investing under the new rules.
