Fortune beams on Tsilhqot'in solar-power project on remote Chilcotin plateau
Credit to Author: Derrick Penner| Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2019 01:55:57 +0000
The Tsilhqot’in solar farm emerges as 16 neat rows of silvery panels on the tawny and green-mottled Chilcotin Plateau’s landscape just off Highway 20, about 80 kilometres west of Williams Lake on the drive to Bella Coola.
Made up of 3,456 solar modules perched at the edge of an old sawmill site, the recently completed facility is rare — one of a handful of small independent power projects to go ahead before the province hit pause on B.C. Hydro’s program for such projects.
But it represents a hopeful model for the solar power needed to fill in the province’s future power needs and to generate economic opportunities for remote First Nations — once government figures out how it wants to proceed with such projects.
“For us, (the project demonstrates) that we can be leaders in clean energy,” said Chief Russell Myers Ross, vice-chair of the Tsilhqot’in National Government.
“We’re sort of unsure at least where B.C. Hydro stands, but we still are trying to have a relationship with the province to try and pursue other energy (opportunities),” for other Tsilhqot’in communities, Myers Ross added.
The idea for the approximately $2.6 million solar facility started with discussions Myers Ross had with B.C. Hydro, as chief of the Yunesit’in First Nation, about ways to give his community some energy security in the face of rising electricity costs on their reserve.
However, the old sawmill site, which lies outside of the Yunesit’in’s immediate territory, proved to be a better site for sunshine, with ready access to Highway 20 and direct access to a power transmission line that wouldn’t require expensive upgrading, said Myers Ross.
So the solar farm was developed, along with the non-profit corporation EcoSmart, as a project for the overall Tsilhqot’in National Government, which involved training and labour for members of all six of its First Nations communities, which is a point of pride for Myers Ross.
“It represents the first successful project, moving from (beginning) to completion, to actually generate revenue,” Myers Ross said. “Even though it’s not a lot of revenue, it’s significant in that it is, finally, own-source revenue.”
Chief Russell Myers Ross, vice-chair of the Tsilhqot’in National Government, alongside solar panels that are part of the Tsilhqot’in solar farm.
The Tsilhqot’in are still waiting for B.C. Hydro to complete its connection to link the solar farm to its grid, the final step before power starts to flow, which a spokeswoman said should be within the next couple of months.
The First Nation has a 25-year contract for the 1.25 megawatt solar farm to supply up to 2.5 gigawatt-hours a year of electricity, enough to power the equivalent of about 250 homes.
The Tsilhqot’in solar farm was one of five projects to proceed under B.C. Hydro’s standing-offer program for small power-generation projects as part of an impact-benefit agreement with First Nations, said spokeswoman Tanya Fish. The standing-offer program was indefinitely suspended in February.
Among other First Nations interested in solar power, the Upper Nicola Indian Band is pursuing a proposal for a more substantial 15 megawatt solar farm on its Quilchena reserve near Merritt with Fortis B.C.
For now, the Tsilhqot’in project is just the second utility-sized solar plant that B.C. Hydro is putting on the grid, Fish said. The other is the Kimberly SunMine solar farm, which is also small — about 1.1 megawatts generating about 2.1 gigawatt hours of electricity a year.
However, Fish said 36 other First Nations have incorporated solar installations into their energy plans under B.C. Hydro’s net metering program, which allows customers to generate power that offsets their own power needs.
While the program allows customers to feed electricity back into B.C Hydro’s system, and earn credits for doing so when their solar panels generate more power than they are using, Fish said the utility doesn’t intend for net metering to become a source of provincial grid supply.
In total, Fish said some 2,400 Hydro customers have enlisted with its net metering program, mostly with small solar-power systems, generating about 17 megawatt-hours of power a year.
B.C., with some particularly sun-scorched Interior locations, has great potential for large solar projects, according to Martin Mullany, the interim executive director at Clean Energy B.C., the main industry organization that represents private-power producers.
“The first lesson is that solar works in B.C.,” Mullany said of the Tsilhqot’in project, which serves an example for other communities.
For the Tsilhqot’in, Mullany said that besides providing a business opportunity to the First Nation, having a source of electric power close to their communities helps stabilize the power grid for the entire region.
“The cost of (solar) technology has dropped 90 per cent in the last 10 years, Mullany added. He said that could revive the prospects for First Nations that examined solar options about five years ago only to discover it wasn’t viable.
“If they re-examined them today, they may find they are economically viable,” Mullany said.
First Nations might also be helped by a recent B.C. Utilities Commission decision that paves the way for their governments to establish their own utilities, though with limits that would prevent them from selling power off their reserves.
Judith Sayers, a board member at Clean Energy B.C. and president of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council on Vancouver Island, told Postmedia that the decision falls short of First Nations’ needs for economic development.