A sizzling buildout of solar in Alberta has delayed a pilot project that will convert abandoned oil and gas well sites to sun-powered power generation.
“We’ve been caught in the major solar boom that’s been happening throughout Alberta, so getting equipment has tightened up quite a bit from where it was a year ago,” said project lead Keith Hirsche, president of RenuWell Energy Solutions.
“Every single manufacturer seems to be tapped right out trying to keep up with demand.”
Part of the challenge is the size of the projects, he said. Initially, RenuWell was planning to work with Canadian Solar, a company that will be installing a commercial-scale project near Tilley, where RenuWell’s projects are. It hoped to make their smaller order as an extension of that larger project to save costs, but the Tilley project has been delayed, affecting the cost and availability of equipment.
“All of a sudden, our procurement has to go out as a two-megawatt procurement rather than a 27-megawatt procurement, so that has affected the cost of the equipment,” said Hirsche.
“A lot of vendors don’t want to deal with smaller projects, so it’s complicated that part of it, both in terms of cost and timing.”
Construction was originally planned to begin on these abandoned well sites next month, but that will likely be pushed back to next spring.
“We’ve made quite a bit of progress, though not as speedy as we had hoped,” said Hirsche.
“But we’ve pretty much got everything lined up, and we’re at the stage where we’re ordering equipment right now.”
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The need certainly hasn’t diminished, he added.
“There’s been a lot more bankruptcies since last year. The biggest oil and gas licence holder in Alberta right now is the Orphan Well Association. The Surface Rights Board can’t keep up with all of the payments.”
But David Vonesch, president of Skyfire Energy, is quick to point out that solar won’t be competing with oil and gas market share within the province.
“Renewable energy works really well with those other technologies,” he said. “There’s lots of oil and gas companies investing really heavily in these renewable energy projects. We just built a big project for Enbridge down near Burdett, and we’re seeing more and more of that.”
Hirsche has seen that in his work with the RenuWell projects as well.
“As carbon issues are becoming more front and centre, some of the oil companies are starting to approach us about converting some of their existing sites that need to be reclaimed to power their ongoing operations,” he said.
“That was originally the vision for this, and it’s finally starting to come around.”
Ultimately, Hirsche hopes that the RenuWell pilot project will provide the proof of concept needed to take the idea to commercialization across Canada.
“I wish things had happened faster, but I definitely think there’s room for growth,” he said. “We do have hope that, little breakthrough by little breakthrough, we can get our project to a commercial level.”
