Work on TC Energy Solar project about to start

Work is about to get underway on a large solar project along Highway 2A between High River and Okotoks.

TC Energy Vice-President, Energy Origination and Development, Omar Khayum says there'll be a lot of solar panels going on the site.

"TC Energy is very excited about the opportunity to partner with the community and develop fewer carbon energy in Foothills County and the surrounding areas." 

"The number of panels are, many, to be specific I think we'll need to see how many ultimately we install but the size of the facility is 81 megawatts, so to give you a sense, that's enough zero carbon energy to power about 20,000 homes annual," he says.

He says they've worked with Foothills County and the Province to make sure they have a safe, reliable and clean source of energy.

During construction there will be about 140 workers in and around the project site during the 12 to 15 months it takes to build and once complete there will be two full time TC Energy employees at the facility.

"The project itself, as solar goes, is fairly straight forward and consistent with how other solar panel projects work, it'll be what's called a fixed tilt, meaning the panels will face directionally south at the same angle towards the sun versus other projects that might have variable tilt, that track the sun or something to that affect," Khayum says. " What is unique, and I think really interesting about the project is what we're doing as far as serving decarbonization needs. So, we are using the solar project in combination with a wind project that TC Energy is buying the energy from as well as a pumped hydro project close to Edmonton that in collective, the wind, solar, hydro will afford us to provide 24/7 clean energy to consumers in Alberta and that is unique."

TC Energy is investing $146 million to build the solar power project, partially supported by $10 million from Emissions Reduction Alberta. 

The funding supports developing this hybrid solar generation facility, which when combined with a flow battery energy storage system, will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Alberta.