Peace Energy Cooperative is planning to go ahead with a community-owned solar farm in the Peace River area after an application for the “Alberta Innovates” grant, was denied.
The solar farm planned to be built on property leased from the Town of Peace River at the Peace River airport would have around 700 solar panels feeding electricity into the local grid, with enough power for 350 homes.
“There’s an awful lot of upfront costs and that’s the challenge we are going to be faced with just to get this project ready to build.”
Executive Director of Peace Energy Renewable Energy Co-operative, Don Pettit says with the grant not going through, their board now needs to approve and new plan before getting the go ahead. “There’s an awful lot of upfront costs and that’s the challenge we are going to be faced with just to get this project ready to build” Pettit said the meeting with the board will be in the next few weeks as they are trying to estimate the upfront costs beforehand.
If the plan for a community-owned solar farm moves forward, it would be financed and owned by Peace Energy Co-op and would raise it capital from their 540+ members through share offering, and then distribute the profits to the investors as a return on their investments.
-Erika Rolling, Trending 55 Newsroom
