Energy investor partners with tribal consortium on Canadian wind project
Energy investor partners with tribal consortium on Canadian wind project | Windpower Monthly
Enbridge and an indigenous development group in Canada are to develop the 200MW Seven Stars energy project in south-east Saskatchewan.
Six Nations Energy Development is a consortium of Cowessess First Nation, George Gordon First Nation, Kahkewistahaw First Nation, Métis Nation-Saskatchewan, Pasqua First Nation and White Bear First Nations.
The project is expected to come online in 2027.
Six Nations Energy Development will be able to purchase at least a 30% stake in the wind project. A C$100 million (US$73 million) loan guarantee from the provincial government’s Indigenous Investment Finance Corporation will help fund Six Nations’ involvement.
“I credit Enbridge for kicking the door open, for allowing [this partnership] to grow,” said Matthew Peigan, chief of Pasqua First Nation. “I don’t like to call it building bridges, I like calling it fill in the gaps, because bridges crumble.”
Peigan said the project cost will be in the range of “hundreds of millions of dollars”.
Revenue from the project will help fund housing, health care and education, he said.
Enbridge said it hopes to sign a long-term power purchase agreement with SaskPower, the province’s utility.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.