Shell Canada and its North American photo voltaic platform Silicon Ranch have introduced plans to construct a 58-megawatt photo voltaic farm adjoining to Shell’s Scotford refinery and chemical compounds park close to Edmonton.
The photo voltaic farm will be the first in Canada to be built, owned and operated by Tennessee-based Silicon Ranch, which is 47 per cent owned by Royal Dutch Shell and constructing photo voltaic tasks for the worldwide power large all around the U.S.
Shell Canada beforehand constructed a five-megawatt photo voltaic farm at Scotford that can begin up this fall and offset emissions from the Shell-owned chemical compounds plant.
The mission introduced Tuesday — which Shell says will start development subsequent 12 months and be operational by the top of 2023 — might be a lot bigger.
In an interview, Shell senior vice-president Mark Pattenden stated all the energy generated by the brand new photo voltaic farm might be devoted to the Scotford refinery, for not less than the following 25 years.
The photo voltaic farm is predicted to provide sufficient renewable electrical energy to offer 20 per cent of the refinery’s power wants.
“That is actually materials decarbonization, of both the prevailing merchandise we produce by way of the refinery … or it creates the chance for future manufacturing of issues like hydrogen or biofuels as nicely,” Pattenden stated.
Shell has stated it desires to remodel the Scotford Complicated into certainly one of 5 power and chemical compounds parks owned by the corporate world wide.
Inside this decade, the corporate desires to make use of carbon seize and storage (CCUS) and renewable energy to course of new feedstocks equivalent to bio-oils or waste oils to scale back the C02 emitted within the manufacturing of gasoline.
As a part of its imaginative and prescient, Shell has proposed its Polaris CCUS mission, that can seize carbon dioxide from the Scotford refinery and chemical compounds plant, with storage capability of about 300 million tonnes of C02. Shell stated it should make a last funding choice in regards to the mission in 2023
Shell additionally has plans to collaborate with Mitsubishi Corp. on the manufacturing of low-carbon hydrogen at Scotford.
The proposed photo voltaic farm at Scotford gained’t require any authorities subsidies or funding.
Pattenden stated as the corporate strikes ahead with its aim of lowering direct and oblique carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 in contrast with 2016 ranges, what it wants most is regulatory certainty round issues like carbon pricing and renewable power coverage.
“We proceed to look not a lot for particular coverage, however extra certainty,” Pattenden stated.
The Shell Scotford Complicated is positioned northwest of Edmonton close to Fort Saskatchewan, in an space referred to as Alberta’s industrial heartland.
The development of a photo voltaic farm close to Scotford will mark the primary large-scale photo voltaic set up within the industrial heartland, Pattenden stated, noting photo voltaic farms are sometimes constructed within the southernmost portion of the province.
However he stated there’s no cause a photo voltaic farm can’t produce successfully at Scotford, declaring will probably be designed with panels that may additionally seize daylight mirrored off snow.
“It’s definitely that southern Alberta is among the greatest locations on the earth (for solar energy) however the Edmonton space is just not far off,” Pattenden stated.
“We do have shorter days within the winter, however longer days in the summertime offsetting that, and nearly as many sunshine hours as southern Alberta.”
Silicon Ranch will present all the capital funding for the photo voltaic farm. A spokesperson for that firm didn’t reply to an e mail inquiry in regards to the whole greenback worth of the mission in time for deadline.
© 2021 The Canadian Press
