Dawson Creek Area Wind Park to Receive Federal Funds

Thursday, August 06, 2009 12:35 PM

Dawson Creek, B.C. — The first wind powered energy park of its kind in B.C. has reached the half way point of construction. By November 2009, the Bear Mountain Wind Park will be generating renewable electricity to power most of B.C.’s South Peace region.

( at right, the first of 34 turbines is completed on July 17th of this year, photo courtesy AltaGas)

Prince George Peace River M.P. Jay Hill has announced the park will receive up to $20.5 million over the next ten years through the ecoENERGY for Renewable Power program.

“By investing in clean energy projects, like the Bear Mountain Wind Park, the Government of Canada is helping to create jobs, stimulate the economy and improve our environment,” said Minister Hill. “This project will encourage sustainable energy for British Columbia’s future and ensure that clean electricity is delivered to Canadians at competitive prices.”

The Bear Mountain Wind Park will have 34 turbines with a total capacity of 102 megawatts and will cover approximately 25 hectares of land on top of Bear Mountain. The project is owned by Bear Mountain Wind Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of AltaGas Income Trust. The electricity generated will be sold to BC Hydro.

Owned and operated by AltaGas, the $200 million project is on track to become British Columbia's first fully operational wind park. To date 24 of the 34 towers have been erected and are awaiting installation of the turbine blades. Scheduled for full-scale power delivery in November 2009, the project is expected to meet or beat that power delivery target.

The $1.5-billion ecoENERGY for Renewable Power program provides a one cent per kilowatt-hour incentive, with the goal of increasing Canada’s renewable electricity capacity by more than 4,000 megawatts — enough to power a million homes. Canada’s Economic Action Plan builds on this investment with an additional $2.4 billion to support the development and deployment of cleaner energy technologies and supporting infrastructure, including the $1-billion Clean Energy Fund and the $1-billion Green Infrastructure Fund.

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Posted on Thursday, August 06, 2009 12:35 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: He spoke on August 6 2009 3:11 PM

sniff sniff sniff, looks like IDL will be up there soon.

Posted by: metalman on August 6 2009 5:56 PM

Wind park; a place where politicians go to practise their speech making.
metalman.

Posted by: lunarguy on August 6 2009 6:11 PM

So let me get this straight. We, the taxpayers are giving a private company tax dollars so then can sell power to BC Hydro at an elevated rate that will result in BCH rates triple within the next 5 years ? Oh and now thanks to the HST, will now have to pay an additional 7% tax for that over priced electricity. Well I feel so honored as a tax payer to be such an integral part of their success.

Posted by: lost it all on August 6 2009 8:50 PM

Welcome to socialized business, lunarguy.

Posted by: seamutt on August 7 2009 9:16 AM

Wind energy, very expensive and the only way it works is wiht taxpayer money. 4000 megs and the average windmill generates about 1 meg. Now over the course of a year because of vatiable wind it generates only about 30% of that power. each of these take about 500 tons of concret and many tons of steal. Thousands of these of these would be required covering thousands of acres and think of the roads to these sites. Now think of companies like GE taking billions of taxpayers dollors to build these things. this is why companies like GE and the likess of Al Gore promote socalled green energy, follow the money. This carbon chasing green energy makes the petro industry look like amateurs.

The earth is cooling not warming.