A green energy company is setting up shop in downtown Peace River.
The Peace Energy Cooperative, based in Dawson Creek opened its new location just a few feet north of the River Drive Mall.
Jenn Ford was hired to be the solar consultant for the Peace River office and says she did consider forming a separate cooperative but in the end, decided to partner with the BC based company.
“We have been working for a few years to get this started,” says Ford. “Peace Energy Cooperative has been mentoring us along the way, and eventually, we decided it would be silly to create two cooperatives when we could jump on board with them.”
“We would not have this office had we not joined up with them.”
The cooperative specializes is installation of renewable forms of energy but the focus in Peace River will be on solar energy.
Ford feels there will be new jobs created.
“We will be looking sooner rather than later for some electricians to work on our installs,” explains Ford.
“We have an electrician that works with us in Dawson Creek who specializes in solar installs so we would like him to come here and train someone local.”
The company is also working on a solar farm project, which would be by the Peace River Regional Airport.
The proposed farm would have approximately 7,000 panels feeding enough electricity into the local grid to power 350 homes.
“We will be hiring locally for that as well,” states Ford. “We will be having a hiring fair; the spring of 2021 is what we are aiming for.”
The cooperative will be having an information session on Thursday evening from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at the Baytex Energy Centre.
– Kenny Trenton, Trending 55 Newsroom
