Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed today to the Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation. I spoke in my statement about the fact that we are now giving up on the plans for power generation and transmission. The government’s message that we’ve been hearing in the last month or two is that we’re moving on to smaller projects now. I mentioned in my statement about community biomass, power and heat systems.
I’d like to first ask the Minister, has there been any work or any research done on community biomass, power and heat systems to date, and what has it told us?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of the NWT Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Out of the first charrette came the direction to look at the issue of the distribution and the transmission grid build-out where we could hook up the Snare system and the Taltson system and investigate the cost of an intertie to Saskatchewan where we could potentially move cheaper power from places like Manitoba and north. We did that. It came back in at about $1.2 billion, probably more than double what we had initially estimated. Rather than keep pursuing that or not do anything, we have recognized the need to change our focus to generation, and not just small generation, but we know, for example, that Yellowknife is in serious need of additional generation capacity both to offset things like lower water, minimize use of diesel, but to pick up extra growth and demand and potentially service the mines.
In regard to the question about the biomass small scale, we know from our research, in fact, we just had a meeting this morning with some of the participants from the charrette. There’s a gentleman over from Germany who has installed over 3,400 different installations around Europe and some in Canada that is eminently feasible to look at that type of generation. You put in some potential batteries or diesel backup or biomass and solar, you have an opportunity to provide a very consistent, affordable, made-in-the-North type of energy source.
Certainly, he mentions Europe. I think it was probably three or four years ago now that we had a mission, so to speak, of Members who went to Europe. It was certainly evident in Europe at that time, and I imagine technology has advanced a great deal since then. The Minister is saying that it’s 3,400 systems, I think, this gentleman has put in, in Europe.
Why are we not doing it here? It’s been possible for us to do it here probably for the last four years. I’d like to know from the Minister what is holding us up from implementing a pilot or basically implementing a community biomass heating and power system?
We started this process in the last Assembly with spending the time to develop our biomass strategy. Part of that strategy was to build a market, then look at building the industry, and we’ve done that. We’ve converted a significant amount of our own facilities to biomass. We’ve taken those savings and reinvested them. We’ve set up incentives to encourage people to switch to biomass. We’ve now just completed two FMA agreements, the first of their kind, forest management agreements, with the people in Providence and the people in Lutselk'e to lay out access to a source of wood fibre, so that we have a private individual that is going to put up a wood pellet plant in Enterprise that is going to be churning out tens of thousands of cubic metres of wood pellets that are going to be part of that initiative.
Now that we’ve proved out that the transmission initiative is beyond our capabilities financially, we’re switching our focus to generation, and we are now looking very, very seriously, through this charrette and other preliminary work that we’ve already done, at what kind of capacity do we have for that type of configuration of biomass and solar plus diesel backup, for example, in Yellowknife, but also all the other thermal communities.
To the Minister, I guess I have to say – my colleague has corrected me – it was six years ago that we heard how successful community plants are in Europe, but nothing has come to fruition. The Minister mentions a lot of small things. Sure, we’re pushing biomass boilers in individual facilities, but we’re not developing one at a community level.
I’d like to ask the Minister, is it conceivable that this concept of a community biomass system will be part of the charrette discussions, because maybe if it comes out of the charrette it will put a little bit of a fire under our rear-end and we’ll get something in place.
I would like to point out that one of our areas of interest where we’ve invested a considerable amount of money has, in fact, been on development of our solar strategy and the solar arrays that we’ve put into Simpson, one of the largest in the country up to the point that it was built, and the pilot project that we’re working on in Colville Lake, where we’re putting in a significant amount of solar power with batteries to look at how much we can maximize penetration into that service system so that we can minimize the cost and reliance on diesel. Now, as the technology has improved, and I’ve mentioned this in the House, that we know that just south of us, in La Crete, they’ve got a 40 megawatt biomass plant. We know that they have a 200 megawatt plant that they just refurbished, a coal fire plant in northern Ontario, and that BC is doing the same thing. We are seriously looking at that now that we are focused very, very intently on generation.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
It will be very short. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I’d like to know from the Minister, when can we expect to see a community energy biomass system?
I don’t believe I’ve used this phrase since the last Assembly, but in due course and the fullness of time as these discussions advance through the charrette, we will look at moving as fast as we can. The question is going to be, how do we get from talk to action? How much money are we going to be able to put into these initiatives? Clearly, the intent is to seriously move with great alacrity on this particular issue. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
