Service centre in N.W.T. hopes Mackenzie River turbine project will mean 'bye bye diesel'

Linda Croft has lofty goals for an energy project beginning to unfold at the Big River Service Centre in Fort Providence, N.W.T., where she's the general manager. 

The service centre is looking at using a submersible turbine to harness the power of the nearby Mackenzie River and turn it into electricity. The project is still in its early stages, but Croft is already imagining a future where the technology is used not just to power the gas station, but homes and electric vehicles too. 

"You put a couple of turbines in and it's bye-bye diesel. We become an all-green community," she said. "I just think it's remarkable." 

Natural Resources Canada gave the Métis-owned company that owns the service centre $350,000 earlier this year to study whether the Mackenzie River would be able to power such a turbine. The Canadian Hydrokinetic Turbine Testing Centre, which already installed a submersible river turbine in Manitoba two years ago, was in the N.W.T. in late July leading the research. 

Eric Bibeau, the centre's director, said Fort Providence has an "excellent resource" in the Mackenzie River. He said he'd be happy with a flow rate of 2.5 metres per second, but they discovered rates of more than four metres per second. 

And that, he pointed out, was during "the lowest possible summer flows." 

Bibeau tested the velocity of rivers at Jean Marie River, Fort Simpson and Wrigley as well. He said he's also coming up with a clean energy plan for Fort Providence, which will include data on all of the renewable energy resources the community has. 

"I never really thought about what energy sovereignty was until I came into this, and now I'm pretty stoked about it," said Anonda Canadien, a 23-year-old Deh Gáh Got'îê First Nation woman. 

The federal funding allowed Canadien and three other young people from Fort Providence to be hired as interns to help out with the project and learn about renewable energy. 

"If we, as First Nations people, controlled our own energy, that would be pretty damn cool," she said. 

Peter Allen, who has been hired by the service centre's board as a project director, previously described the turbine as two 20-foot-long pontoons attached in the middle with blades that look like a vertical egg beater. 

"If you see a windmill, a big windmill, you see blades and you see the rotor turning," explained Bibeau. "It just so happens in physics, it doesn't matter if you've got water or air, it's exactly the same physics." 

Allen said now that a study of the river has had positive results, the next step is submitting an application to the federal government for $4 million to install two turbines, one after the other, in the Mackenzie River. The deadline for those applications is in September.

If they're able to move forward with a demonstration project, Allen said the risks will be whether the river maintains its velocity throughout the year, and if ice will go deep enough to damage the equipment during the spring breakup. 

If all goes well, Allen said two turbines would generate more power than the service centre needs and the surplus would return to the community's power grid for distribution elsewhere. He draws confidence from the fact Natural Resources Canada had already funded this summer's river characterization study. 

Croft, too, is optimistic. 

"I'm positive we're going to get a turbine in that water," she said. "We've got the right team."