Alberta turns to Indigenous partnerships and Ontario companies to pursue renewable energy projects and jobs

As Ontario turns its back on hundreds of renewable energy contracts, the province at the heart of Canada’s oilpatch appears to be going in a different direction. Alberta will bring on five more renewable energy projects by mid-2021, three of which are partnerships with First Nations, the province’s government said on Monday, with the winning bids again offering to sell wind power at a very competitive price. The $1.2 billion in new investments — from a unit of French energy giant EDF and a company which had a string of contracts to build solar projects in Ontario cancelled recently, among others — will generate 760 megawatts of green power once up and running, enough to power 300,000 homes. The projects will create around 1,000 jobs and will leverage “our natural strengths as an energy province here in Alberta in every sense of the word,” Shannon Phillips, the province’s environment minister, said. The NDP government of Premier Rachel Notley is embarking on a multi-pronged effort to both ensure its massive oil and gas industry can survive an oil price slump and logistical challenges and bolster its fledgling renewable energy industry, which can harness the power of the province’s advantageous wind […]

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