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Councillors explore green energy projects
Preliminary discussions with Terasen Gas lead to more meetings
by Laura Walz | editor@prpeak.com
City of Powell River councillors have had preliminary talks with Terasen Gas representatives about developing green energy projects in the community.
Councillor Dave Formosa reported at the October 15 council meeting that during the recent UBCM (Union of BC Municipalities) conference, he and Councillor Chris McNaughton spoke to Terasen officials about projects in which the city could be a partner. “We’ve invited Terasen Gas to come into the community for some preliminary talks on looking at infrastructure within our community to do with green energy, heat and air conditioning, geothermal and these types of things,” he said.
The city has land in the area, Formosa said, and energy could be supplied to facilities like the Powell River General Hospital and the Powell River Recreation Complex. “We allow Terasen Gas to put geothermal in on some of our properties, they run the lines to the facilities and they pay for the infrastructure over a 20- or 30-year period of time,” he said. “In exchange for that, we would get stable rates for whatever we negotiate with them, 10 years, 20 years.”
Formosa said he and McNaughton took it a step further. “We said we’re interested in that, but only if we can get a share in this utility as a city, a 20-to-25-per-cent share,” Formosa said. “They said that’s not really their mandate. We nicely indicated well maybe we shouldn’t get together and they nicely indicated that maybe we can look outside the box.”
They are setting a date for when Terasen will come into the community, Formosa said.
In an effort to save on expenses, Formosa and McNaughton were the only Powell River elected officials at the conference. They met with a long list of provincial ministers, including Colin Hansen, minister of finance, Blair Lekstrom, minister of energy, mines and petroleum resources, Pat Bell, minister of forests and range, Bill Bennett, minister of community and rural development, and Kevin Kruger, minister of tourism, culture and the arts.
All the meetings with ministers were positive and meaningful discussions, said McNaughton. “With Minister Lekstrom we talked about IPPs [independent power projects] and we also had a conversation about where the government intends to go with respect to the BC Utility Commission decision not to support the IPP initiatives and the provincial government’s response,” he said. “We got assurances from the minister that, because of the impacts within our community and our region of potential job loss and investment loss, the government is paying particular attention to this and addressing that matter with dispatch.”
The province is working hard at amalgamating the federal and provincial governments’ environmental assessment processes, Formosa added. “What our provincial government is trying to do is marry these two components and have the province do the federal and provincial components of the environmental process, which would really speed it up,” he said. “There are billions and billions of dollars literally ready to go in economic development but it’s being held up on the environmental side here in British Columbia.”
Many of the other discussions Formosa and McNaughton had dealt with the issue of major industry taxation. Formosa said an action plan was developed during the meetings.
Councillor Dave Formosa reported at the October 15 council meeting that during the recent UBCM (Union of BC Municipalities) conference, he and Councillor Chris McNaughton spoke to Terasen officials about projects in which the city could be a partner. “We’ve invited Terasen Gas to come into the community for some preliminary talks on looking at infrastructure within our community to do with green energy, heat and air conditioning, geothermal and these types of things,” he said.
The city has land in the area, Formosa said, and energy could be supplied to facilities like the Powell River General Hospital and the Powell River Recreation Complex. “We allow Terasen Gas to put geothermal in on some of our properties, they run the lines to the facilities and they pay for the infrastructure over a 20- or 30-year period of time,” he said. “In exchange for that, we would get stable rates for whatever we negotiate with them, 10 years, 20 years.”
Formosa said he and McNaughton took it a step further. “We said we’re interested in that, but only if we can get a share in this utility as a city, a 20-to-25-per-cent share,” Formosa said. “They said that’s not really their mandate. We nicely indicated well maybe we shouldn’t get together and they nicely indicated that maybe we can look outside the box.”
They are setting a date for when Terasen will come into the community, Formosa said.
In an effort to save on expenses, Formosa and McNaughton were the only Powell River elected officials at the conference. They met with a long list of provincial ministers, including Colin Hansen, minister of finance, Blair Lekstrom, minister of energy, mines and petroleum resources, Pat Bell, minister of forests and range, Bill Bennett, minister of community and rural development, and Kevin Kruger, minister of tourism, culture and the arts.
All the meetings with ministers were positive and meaningful discussions, said McNaughton. “With Minister Lekstrom we talked about IPPs [independent power projects] and we also had a conversation about where the government intends to go with respect to the BC Utility Commission decision not to support the IPP initiatives and the provincial government’s response,” he said. “We got assurances from the minister that, because of the impacts within our community and our region of potential job loss and investment loss, the government is paying particular attention to this and addressing that matter with dispatch.”
The province is working hard at amalgamating the federal and provincial governments’ environmental assessment processes, Formosa added. “What our provincial government is trying to do is marry these two components and have the province do the federal and provincial components of the environmental process, which would really speed it up,” he said. “There are billions and billions of dollars literally ready to go in economic development but it’s being held up on the environmental side here in British Columbia.”
Many of the other discussions Formosa and McNaughton had dealt with the issue of major industry taxation. Formosa said an action plan was developed during the meetings.
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