Greengate Power: Energizing Alberta’s future with renewable projects of unprecedented scale
$16 trillion: that’s the investment opportunity represented by clean energy through 2030; spending on renewable energy is poised to pass oil and gas drilling in 2021. Dan Balaban has been ahead of this moment by about 15 years, when he first founded Calgary-based Greengate Power—a company that today is responsible for some of the largest clean-energy projects in the entire world.
Balaban first put his computer science education and entrepreneurial skills to use as founder of Roughneck.ca, which made software that helped the Canadian oil patch manage field operations and report greenhouse gases. He saw clearly the environmental challenges that the oil and gas industry was then facing—and would face in the future—and resolved to develop renewable energy projects that would have long-term economic viability and low environmental impact. “I knew I wanted to do something green as my next initiative,” he says, “because I could see the opportunity that was coming in transitioning the world from fossil fuels to renewables.”
Dan Balaban, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer
CALGARY’S CLEANTECH COMMUNITY
Calgary is getting a head start on that opportunity. Almost 250 renewable energy companies and 108 energy storage companies are located here, making the city one of Canada’s most important cleantech hubs.
Balaban points out that Alberta was one of the first places in Canada to adopt wind energy at utility scale a couple of decades ago, and that Calgary now has a well-established community of renewable energy professionals, including consultants, contractors, lawyers, and bankers. “A lot has changed in the last 20 years in terms of tech, from angel investor initiatives to incubator spaces. I see our budding tech industry growing.”
He’s not wrong. In 2019, Calgary was ranked one of the world’s top 15 cleantech ecosystems by international research and policy advisory organization Startup Genome.
In today’s well-connected global environment, attracting the best and brightest makes for some stiff competition, but it’s one that the city can win. Balaban points out that The Economist recently rated Calgary the fifth most livable city in the world, and that it’s among the most affordable places in Canada. Apart from that, there’s an optimistic energy in Calgary that heralds new successes ahead. “Alberta’s an open-for-business province, and Calgary has always been at the centre of that,” says Balaban.
FORESIGHT CLEANTECH X PLATFORM CALGARY
In partnership with Foresight Cleantech Accelerator Centre, Platform Calgary offers cleantech entrepreneurs a two-stage accelerator program. The Launch phase helps startups draw up minimum viable product plans, analyze their value proposition, investigate potential customer groups, test assumptions, and develop world-class innovations. Participants benefit from mentoring by an executive in residence and networking with decision makers and other cleantech leaders and entrepreneurs. The Deliver phase guides CTOs through the nine Technology Readiness Levels, helping them transform ideas into products that solve real customer problems and drive revenue.
Platform Calgary is getting ready to move into a new 50,000-square-foot facility in Calgary’s East Village district. Opening in 2021, The Platform Innovation Centre is set to be the city’s downtown hub for the startup and innovation ecosystem, and will provide “access to the advice, investment and connections needed to build businesses, adopt innovation and change entire industries.
BIG ENERGY
Greengate Power has been developing large-scale renewable energy projects for more than a decade.
Actually, “large-scale” doesn’t quite capture the situation.
The 400-megawatt (MW) Travers Project in Vulcan County sprawls over nearly 5,000 contiguous acres (that’s five times the size of Manhattan’s Central Park); when completed in 2021, it will be the largest operating solar energy project in Canada, and one of the largest in the world. By comparison, Canada's current first and second largest, both in Ontario, each have a capacity of 100MW. Over the project’s 35-year life expectancy (after which it will be decommissioned or repowered), its 1.5 million solar panels will generate enough emissions-free electricity to power more than 111,000 Alberta homes a year. Travers is expected to offset approximately 472,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually—a significant impact on Alberta’s grid.
Recognizing Alberta’s huge potential in solar energy, Denmark-based Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners—the world’s largest renewable-energy-focused infrastructure fund—agreed in February 2020 to invest in Travers Solar to the tune of more than $500 million. It’s the first Canadian investment for the Danes, who aren’t the only international players interested in Alberta’s renewable energy sector, thanks in part to Canada’s decision to phase out coal, thus creating the need for new sources of energy.
Greengate has similar big accomplishments when it comes to wind power; they developed the 300MW Blackspring Ridge Wind Project (also in Vulcan County), the largest operating wind energy project in the nation. To date, Greengate has developed wind projects representing nearly $1 billion of investment in Alberta—that’s a clean source of energy for approximately 200,000 homes. The company's current wind project at Stirling, near Lethbridge, will be around 113MW in size and will include up to 28 wind turbines. According to Greengate, each turbine can supply needed electricity for approximately 750 homes; every 1,000MW of wind generation reduces yearly CO2 emissions by 2 million tons.
And if you’re worried about the effect of turbines and solar panels on birds and other wildlife, you can rest easy knowing that all Greengate projects are scrutinized closely by provincial authorities to ensure compliance with environmental, noise, glare and other regulations. The company chooses its sites very carefully, with the intention of minimizing impact to all nearby residents, human and otherwise.
NATURAL ASSETS
If there are three things that southern Alberta has, those would be sun, wind, and lots (and lots) of undeveloped land.
Calgary is Canada’s sunniest city. With an average of 333 sunny days and 2,396 hours of sunshine per year, the city gets more sunshine than Miami, Florida in the summer months.
More than 35% of Alberta’s land base has a wind resource considered viable for energy production (Calgary Economic Development)
TRANSITION
The transition from petroleum to cleaner energy is a topic of huge—and sometimes hotly contested—importance in Calgary, long the headquarters of Canada’s oil and gas sector. “In Alberta, we're taking steps to ensure oil and gas will be viable as long as the world is using oil and gas,” he says. Just the same, the downturn has demonstrated that there are systemic issues in oil and gas, and the world as a whole is moving toward cleaner, cheaper energy sources. “We have to use this opportunity to think about what we’d like our future to be in this city and province,” he says. “We have an opportunity to build the Alberta of the future.”
As the province phases out coal-fired electricity by 2030, there will be tremendous opportunities in wind, solar, natural gas and emerging technologies. Balaban estimates $10-20 billion will have to be invested in the power sector over next decade to replace coal. Luckily, Alberta has a well-established regulatory framework and a well-constructed electricity market, both of which will encourage that investment. “All the necessary ingredients are here in Alberta for the success of renewable energy projects,” says Balaban.
That said, the transition won’t be without its challenges. The workforce will have to migrate skills from oil and gas so that Calgarians can be global energy leaders in other areas, such as renewable energy. Balaban participates regularly in advisory sessions and panel discussions on the subject at universities and conferences in Alberta and around the globe. To fill the jobs of the future, not the jobs of the past, university and college students need a curriculum that aligns better with the direction in which the energy system is headed. Balaban sees a need for streams specific to clean energy, and a reorienting of finance, engineering, and management courses.
THE TIPPING POINT
Renewable energy has long had the reputation for being great in terms of the environment, but economically unviable without government subsidy. That’s all changed in the last decade. According to Pembina Institute, since 2009-10 the technology price of wind has fallen by 66 percent, and that of solar by 86 per cent. Pembina also found that, even during peak demand, the lifetime output of clean energy portfolios can provide the same services as new gas plants—at $9-24 less per megawatt hour.
This decline in cost derives from an improved global supply chain and advancing technologies. The power of solar modules has grown while their price has dropped dramatically; wind turbines are much more cost-effective, efficient, and durable—they can now produce electricity for 20-25 years.
Speaking of which, the ability to repower aging or simply outdated technology is also improving for both solar and wind farms. It’s increasingly easy—and economically desirable—to repower a solar array instead of decommissioning it. Many solar plants are replacing components long before end-of-life because doing so increases efficiency and capacity. Repowering a wind turbine involves replacing blades, turbines and generators to improve performance; data from Europe, where many wind projects are reaching 25-30 years of age, shows that repowered wind projects extend the life of the infrastructure and radically reduce the cost of power generated.
The significance of repowering goes beyond cost efficiencies. As Canada tries to meet its Paris Agreement obligations, and as the world looks to reduce its carbon footprint, solar and wind plants will become a regular part of the physical and energy landscapes.
WHAT’S NEXT
Greengate intends to build out an additional $1 billion of large-scale renewable projects here in Alberta and is looking at the possibility of developing projects elsewhere in the world. The International Energy Agency forecasts that, by 2050, the sun will provide most of the world’s electricity, so Greengate's future looks bright.
“Calgary is a great place to live and a great place to do business. Our entrepreneurial spirit has always defined us,” says Balaban. “And that same entrepreneurial spirit will drive us forward to build the Alberta of the future.”