Potato plant seeks approval to build windmills on site

Posted on September 19, 2024 by Ryan Dahlman

Southern Alberta Newspapers

McCain has an agreement to partner with a renewable power developer to provide wind and solar power directly to an expansion of its potato plant near Coaldale.

Applications filed with the Alberta Utilities Commission on Sept. 9 state that Elemental Energy plans to co-locate and operate a small solar array as well as windmills at the plant site 10 kilometres east of the town at Chin, Alta.

A small solar array would have a capacity of 5 megawatts, while five wind towers, cumulative capacity of 31 megawatts would be located on land north and south of Highway No. 3.

“McCain is purchasing all the electricity generated by the project,” reads the application filed by Vancouver-based Elemental Energy. “Any excess electricity that McCain does not use onsite will be exported to the grid.”

The site sits partially in Lethbridge County and partially in the Municipal District of Taber.

If approved, construction would commence in the summer of 2025 and be complete by late 2026, according to Elemental.

McCain announced the $600 million processing expansion in the spring of 2023, outlining two new production line and addition of green power toward a goal of being 100 per cent renewable powered.

Elemental Energy built and operates the first industrial-sized solar field in Alberta, the Brooks Solar One plant near that city, in 2017.

It also operates the Chappice Lake solar+storage facility northeast of Medicine Hat, among other solar plants and wind facilities in B.C. and Quebec.