Canadian Hydro to set world record

Orangeville Citizen
February 8, 2007
Wes Keller

Paris-based Nexans, globally known as a leading electrical cable maker, has inked a Euro 7-million (approximately CDN$10.5-million) with Canadian Renewable Energy Corp. (CREC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Hydro Developers Inc, for a 7.8 kilometre (about 4.7 miles) underwater cable connecting Wolfe Island to the mainland near Kingston.

The cable, to be at a maximum depth of 23 metres (about 75 feet) beneath the St. Lawrence River, is to carry 230 kilovolts from a planned 200-megawatt wind farm on the island to the mainland.

It will set a world record because the 7.8 km long cable will be the world's first 3-core XLPE submarine cable to achieve a voltage rating of 245 kV, beating Nexans' current world record of 150 kV, set by the Horns Rev offshore wind farm in Denmark.

The wind project will consist of 86, 2.3-MW wind turbines located on Wolfe Island, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. It will annually generate enough renewable electricity to power 75,000 households. Construction is scheduled to commence in this spring, with commercial operation expected in October 2008.

Ross Keating, Canadian Hydro's chief of operations, said the project, the first wind facility of its type in North America, where a cable will run underwater from the mainland to an island where the wind farm will be built, is proof of his company's willingness to innovate.

"Canadian Hydro is willing to innovate to deliver renewable electric energy to the people of Ontario," he said.

The cable will be manufactured at Nexans' factory in Halden, Norway, and is scheduled for delivery in May 2008.

The Wolfe Island project has been a long time in development.

According to information from the local tourism and business association, CREC and another corporation had assessed the viability of wind generation on the largest of the Thousand Islands (and the last isle before the start of the St. Lawrence River) and had inked leases with landowners, but had not procured a contract with the Ontario Power Authority.

Following its purchase of CREC and its land-lease options, CHD was successful in securing the required 20-year contract.

Apparently on that basis, the Wolfe Island council negotiated an "amenities agreement" with CHD, along the same principle that Melancthon Township had done in securing an added $1,000 payment to the township per turbine in addition to and separate from the industrial tax on the $40,000 provincially capped assessment of each turbine. With the agreements in hand, it approved CHD's site plan conditionally and amended its zoning to permit construction of wind turbines within agriculturally zoned properties.

But the municipality protected itself by keeping a "holding" designation on the area involved.

Even so, it had apparently not explained its position clearly enough, and the association has reported that two people have appealed the zoning bylaw because it was passed prior to completion of an Environmental Screening Report. Those persons, however, did indicate they are open to "mediation." Their objections were to the bylaw's passing, and not specifically to the wind farm.

"By passing the zoning bylaw, we allowed CHD to develop the site plan and to include it with the ESR. We probably should have spent more time explaining that at the public meetings or in the letter I sent to constituents. With the exception of the removal of the 'holding provision' the process is out of our hands," the association reports Mayor Vandenhoek as saying.

Should both the Melancthon II wind project and the Wolfe Island one proceed as scheduled, the two would add 332 megawatts of nameplate wind-power capacity to Ontario's energy mix by the summer of 2009, the year in which Premier Dalton McGuinty wants to have phased out coal-fired plants.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance has estimated that wind can supply 17% of its installed capacity during peak summer hours, given a province-wide distribution of turbines.

At the same time, it has said that coal can be phased out on target by converting the Nanticoke, Thunder Bay and Atikokan coal plants to natural gas and restarting the Pickering A Unit 4 nuclear reactor.

The alliance would rely on gas-fired turbines to "spike" when required during peak summer periods, but not to run a full tilt when wind and other renewable resources are available.