Feds to offer up former Cape Breton coal mine land to meet green-energy target

The federal government has enlisted the help of the Nova Scotia government in a bid to make its offices and military facilities entirely green powered by 2025, and is also offering the energy industry a sweetener involving former Cape Breton coal mining lands.

The electricity it buys from Nova Scotia Power currently includes 30 per cent renewable energy, and federal officials responsible for the Atlantic Clean Energy Initiative are banking on the utility increasing that amount to 50 per cent by the deadline.

Ottawa's plan is to find the remainder from someone else over the next 5½ years.

"That means that we are looking to replace approximately 100 million kilowatt hours, which would equate to the electricity that would be required to power about 10,000 homes," said Ian MacDonald, the regional director of the Atlantic Clean Energy Initiative.

It's likely Cape Breton Island will profit most from the shift. As part of the project, the federal government is making former Cape Breton Development Corporation land available to those who want to supply the renewable energy.

The former coal mining company has roughly 800 parcels scattered across industrial Cape Breton and together total more than 5,000 hectares.

DND biggest energy consumer

MacDonald said a request for proposals for projects anywhere in Nova Scotia might be issued within a year to 18 months. He said federal and provincial officials would be consulting with interested parties and industry between now and then to refine the call for bids.

"It's easily anticipated that there would be potential wind farms or some solar arrays, but really we'll wait and see what the results of the procurement process will bring us," he said.

All told, federal departments and agencies in the province, including the RCMP, the Canadian Coast Guard and Parks Canada, use roughly two per cent of all the electricity generated by Nova Scotia Power. It's equivalent to what's needed to power 19,000 homes.

The Department of National Defence, with bases in Dartmouth, Halifax, Aldershot and Greenwood, is by far the single largest federal power user. It consumes 70 per cent of all of the federal government's electricity needs in Nova Scotia, which last year cost DND $15.7 million.

Provincial involvement

Nova Scotia is involved because energy is a provincial responsibility and laws, along with corresponding regulations, will need to change to allow federal departments and agencies to buy the clean energy they need.

"This could include changes around the relationship between an energy provider and an energy customer," said Peter Craig, the manager of electricity policy at Nova Scotia's Department of Energy and Mines.

"The province is committed to collaborating with the federal government on making any changes that are necessary to ensure that the federal government is successful."

The provincial government is also hoping, in its search for millions of dollars worth of renewable energy, the federal initiative will spur new green-energy projects.

"At this stage we can't really put a number on it but there will be economic development and new jobs in the industry as a consequence," said Craig.

Shift to local power

Dan Roscoe, renewable energy lead at the Verschuren Centre for Renewable Energy, a Cape Breton-based sustainable research facility, is less reluctant to put a figure on that potential development.

"In very rough numbers a 30-megawatt wind farm would likely be in the $50-million range," said Roscoe, whose centre has been hired by the federal government to provide it with advice on going green.

"It's a significant piece of infrastructure."

Roscoe said the shift to power from local sources also makes sense in the longer term.

"That money is staying in our economy rather than importing fossil fuels from abroad," he said. "So there's a direct ongoing benefit to the economy once the construction phase is complete."

Ottawa is focusing on the Atlantic region because federal facilities in the four Atlantic provinces account for roughly 41 per cent of all the electricity-generated greenhouse gas emissions from federal buildings, in the country.