Winners and losers are an unfortunate aspect of rural economic development.
When one town gets an ethanol plant, a town down the road loses out. When one community gets funding for a pulse processing facility, another community is disappointed.
Dan Mazier is one rural resident who’s sick of that scenario and doing something about it.
Mazier and other residents in the Rural Municipality of Elton, just north of Brandon, are planning to build the first community-owned wind farm in Manitoba.
“What we’re proposing… is locally produced, locally used power,” said Mazier, chair of the Elton Energy Cooperative, during a presentation at Manitoba Ag Days in Brandon in January.
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The co-operative’s goal is to raise money within the community and erect two wind turbines, at a cost of $7 million, to provide two to three megawatts of power for the 1,285 residents of Elton.
Once the turbines are up and turning, which is still a few years down the road, the wind power will go into the local network of 25 kilovolt lines, allowing the RM to meet its electricity needs and provide a return for local investors.
“Farm families will be able to own these things and get a decent rate of return,” said Mazier, who added the idea has been getting a positive response, once people understand the concept.
Mazier has also explained the Elton model in the RM of Blanshard, 50 kilometres northwest of Brandon.
“We have the Blanshard Community Development Corporation and we’re struggling, like everyone, trying get something that will be good (for the community),” said Diane Kuculym.
“I think it is a good model, but it probably still has a long way to go.”
The model for an energy co-operative is much different than a typical development model, said Lawrence Lafond, project manager for Elton Energy, who has worked on wind co-operatives in Minnesota and Ontario.
Most projects look more like Manitoba’s first wind farm in St. Leon, which has 63 turbines, produces 99 mw and is controlled by an Ontario company, Algonquin Power.
“The goal (with a co-operative) is to ensure that local communities have a high level of control of the resources that come from their communities,” said Lafond, who contrasted that to a model where “someone comes in from the outside, extracts a resource and pays royalties to a lucky one or two people.”
While Elton Energy is focused on wind, this concept is more than turbines, said Lafond, it’s also to create a model that any community can copy.
“One area might have a favourable wind regime, another area might have the ability to manufacture biogas, such as a large hog farm,” said Lafond.
“But, if we really want to have sustainable communities, then we need to figure out ways to allow communities to share, more broadly, the wealth that’s created (from their area.)”
The next step in the Elton project, Mazier said, will be putting up a meteorological tower this spring to collect wind data for the region.
