Excitement builds for proposed wind turbine project in Kinkora area
Wind turbines would power 4,000 homes on P.E.I. per year
Some Prince County residents are walking away with more answers after attending Tuesday night's public information session in Albany, P.E.I., on the Wejipek Wind Project.
The proposed project is a partnership between Lennox Island First Nation and Natural Forces, an independent power producer, that would see the construction of three 200-metre-tall wind turbine generators on privately-owned land in the Middleton and Kinkora area.
"I really enjoyed [the information session]," said Austin Johnston, who lives close to where the turbines would be built. "Talked to one of the gentlemen there and he answered all my questions."
The turbines would be capable of producing roughly 12 to 18 megawatts of energy, which would be enough to power roughly 4,000 homes per year on P.E.I.
Johnston said he thinks there is a need for the turbines and he can see their benefits.
"It's not impacting me, so I'm comfortable with it — and as we move forward, and as years go by, we need more electricity," he said.
"More people on the Island, everybody's using heat pumps, so we need some more alternate energy."
Tess Donohue, the project manager for Natural Forces, said the team wanted to connect with the community to provide them with updates on the progress that has been made and any upcoming work that is to come.
"We're really excited to hopefully bring some renewable energy to P.E.I. and to contribute to the grid here," Donohue said.
Donohue added that the turbines will hopefully help stimulate P.E.I.'s economy by providing jobs.
With a majority ownership of the Wejipek Wind Project, Drew Bernard, the energy lead for Lennox Island First Nation, said the community is hoping to get some of its members employed and involved in every stage of the project, whether it be pre- or post-construction.
Bernard said that having majority ownership of the project gives the First Nation a seat at the table.
"We don't want to be putting in all this work to have, you know, a minority piece of these projects. We want to be in the majority seat," he said.
"We want to learn how these projects come together, build capacity within our community while doing that, and, yeah, bring in some revenue and pump some green power ... to the grid."
Bernard said Lennox Island wanted to have a turbine in the community, but discovered that Malpeque Bay is recognized as a wildlife sanctuary. After scanning different areas on P.E.I., the team selected the land near Kinkora because of the new transmission line running through the municipality, and lots of farm fields that are far enough away from houses.
"We as the Mi'kmaq people, we certainly view ourselves as having an inherent responsibility to do our part to ensure that the projects that we're putting on the line don't affect any of these lands," he said.
In addition, Bernard said it was important for Lennox Island First Nation to have these wind turbines because climate change is top of mind for a lot of people.
"We felt that we had a responsibility as the Mi'kmaq people here in P.E.I. to do our part to electrify some of our systems and bring renewable energy to the province," he said.
"That's really why we wanted to get into the wind sector, is to really help P.E.I. become net-zero and do our part to help Canada reach its climate targets."
Donohue said the Wejipek Wind Project is still in the development phase and there is no start date for the construction. She said provincial requirements still need to be finalized and negotiations for a power purchase agreement also need to be completed before procuring the turbines.
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