A local utility systems expert has examined the feasibility of St. Albert’s solar-farm project by making some calculations of his own, and he says the results don’t match up with city projections.
Frank Vagi, a St. Albert resident and chemical engineering instructor at the University of Alberta, has spent his career specializing in utility systems and energy efficiency.
According to Vagi, he has been curious about solar power for quite some time. When the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) ran a solar-farm pilot project by gathering data from 12 solar modules over a five-year period, Vagi said his interest grew.
“I wanted to see what all the hype was about,” Vagi said.
After emailing the researchers and obtaining the raw data from their study, Vagi used the solar-panel data to formulate estimates for home solar arrangements.
More recently, Vagi used the NAIT data to examine numbers in the city’s solar-farm business case, such as the $2.42 million predicted yearly revenue based off of energy firm ATCO. Vagi said the NAIT data has shown there is an average of 1,135 hours of solar power available in Edmonton each year.
Based off of this number and the scale of the solar farm, Vagi predicted the amount of energy produced by the farm would be 21,587 megawatts per hour each year (MWh/year).
This number is lower than the 21,800 MWh/year assumed by ATCO in their solar farm business plan. As for the discrepancy, Vagi argued the ATCO assumption was “perfect.”
“They assume there’s no clouds and that there’s nothing impacting the solar from reaching the panel, which isn’t really true,” Vagi said of ATCO’s projections. “The five-year data gives me a real-life estimation of what the farm will be able to generate.”
Different projections
In a presentation for the solar-farm business plan provided by ATCO to St. Albert council on June 21, ATCO said its projections were based on a scenario where the solar farm initially entered a power purchase agreement (PPA) that would last 15 years.
A PPA is a contract where a purchaser agrees to buy energy at a set rate from a provider instead of purchasing energy at fluctuating prices from the market set by the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO).
Afterward, the solar farm would sell the electricity back to the grid at this fluctuating market price, called the merchant price.
When asked by Coun. Sheena Hughes why the model for the solar farm didn’t assume a renewed PPA at the end of the 15-year contract — which would bring in more revenue than the fluctuating merchant price — ATCO said that a second PPA could be a possibility, but that they had assumed the worst-case scenario.
Vagi calculated his own power price based on values released by the city, including annual revenue and assumed environmental revenues such as carbon credits, and found the revenue the solar farm would generate per year came up short in his calculations.
For how much the city would have to sell the power generated by the solar farm to make $2.42 million in revenue each year, Vagi reached a PPA value of $78.55 per megawatt hour (MWh). He also found the merchant power price would need to be $81.30 MWh, higher than the 2000-2020 average pool price at $60.41/MWh.
These calculations made by Vagi were based off of city-provided data alone, and not the modelling based on the NAIT solar farm.
Previous calculations by The Gazette based on dividing the solar farm’s expected electricity revenue by its output determined the city expected to earn $68.94 to $78.56 per MWh through electricity sales.
Purchaser undetermined
Vagi said he was doubtful the city could come up with a PPA given the steep markup his calculations demonstrated.
“Somebody is magically going to be out there and they’re going to buy that power at twice what they can buy it from the Alberta Electric System Operator?” Vagi asked. “I don’t know where they’re going to find that sucker.”
One possible way Vagi suggested the city might sell its energy would be by entering into a PPA with itself and using the power generated by the Badger Lands solar farm to power city buildings.
“It can contract itself to the energy corporation because they would be independent organizations,” Vagi said of the city.
The City of St. Albert did not provide answers to a list of 15 questions emailed by The Gazette, asking about the solar farm and the municipal energy corporation (MEC), at time of publication.
Two of the emailed questions inquired as to what would happen if the city was unable to enter into a PPA for its solar-farm energy, and whether the city would consider entering into a PPA with itself. The city did not provide a reason for the delay in answers at the time of publication.
The city did not provide a spokesperson to answer The Gazette’s questions via an interview.
