Two Townships, Two Ways of Doing Things

Bids for two energy projects are being proposed in Frontenac County this fall.

One project is for a large array of batteries, all located in engineered metal buildings with sophisticated climate controls to ensure that any heat surges that ever occur do not lead to flames. The arrays and the buildings are to be constructed in such a way that, even if one set of batteries catches fire, it will not spread to any others, and certainly not from one of the many buildings to any other.

There have been fires in some of the earlier incarnations of these Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) around the world, hence the fixation with fire safety in the systems being designed and installed currently.

The systems have no moving parts except for cooling fans, and are about as noisy as the heat pumps, about 45dba, that are becoming ubiquitous in rural Ontario homes.

These systems are designed to draw power from the vast Ontario electrical grid when there is a surplus, and to store it for use when there is a shortage. They are not power plants.

The other project is for a set of up to six Vernova TM2500 aero-derivative gas turbines to be installed in a quarry. According to GE, the company that makes them, there are over 340 TM 2500s installed around the world, and they are a “proven solution for providing a baseload bridge to permanent power installations or for generating backup power in the wake of natural disasters, plant shutdowns, grid instability or isolated locations.”

One of the features of the TM2500 model is they can be adjusted to be fired up by different fuels, and the proposal that was supported by Central Frontenac Council earlier this month was for bio-fuel to be used if the company that asked for their support, Originative Energy Solutions, wins a competitive bidding process to install and operate the project.

While using bio-fuel to fire up the TM2500 would make operating the system carbon neutral, that does not mean it would be emissions free. Carbon neutral is a climate change mitigation term, referring to the fact that the carbon reduction from growing the corn that will be processed into bio-fuel at a plant in Havelock, offsets the emissions from firing up the gas turbines. Those emissions will still come out of the turbines when they operate.

The turbines also create noise when they operate, 87dba, which, according to the Canadian Centre for Health and Safety, is a level that workers can safely be exposed to for a maximum of 4 hours a day. Sound travels, of course, but it dissipates as well, and according to Steven Reader, of Originative Energy Solutions, the sound of the TM2500s will not be a concern for neighbouring property owners.

BESS systems, a relatively new technology that is in a constant state of development, and the more established TM2500s that are also being upgraded all the time by GE, are both operating well in a variety of locations around the world.

If you live close to a TM2500, you are living next to a power plant that is fired up from time to time, and if you live near a BESS system you are living near a battery array.

One is an active technology and the other is a passive one.

The proponent for the BESS system in North Frontenac is Alectra Energy Solutions, a division of Alectra Utilities, which is the largest municipally owned utility in Canada, serving residents of Mississauga and Guelph, among others. You can look them up online.

Originative Energy Solutions is a project put together by 5 engineers with a combined experience of over150 years in the energy sector. They do not have a website, yet. However, not only have they been transparent about how new they are, they have also been pre-vetted by the IESO to be able to participate in the procurement process.

The Alectra proposal has been heavily scrutinised by the public in North Frontenac. The process has included three public meetings, lots of information on the Engage Frontenac site, but there is still a lot of opposition to the project. Over 600 people have signed a petition opposing it, which is a lot when you consider there are only 1900 permanent residents of North Frontenac, and not only do the lake associations in the vicinity of the project oppose it, so does the North Frontenac Association of Lake Associations, a blanket group representing the 8,000 seasonal residents in the township.

As reported in this paper, the vote on municipal support in North Frontenac will take place tomorrow. The vote will be a split one, and it is hard to say how it will turn out.

Notably, Originative Energy Solutions faced little public scrutiny for their gas turbine project in Central Frontenac. They made their first presentation to Council in September, and the council passed a support motion two meetings later, in October. The Township CAO, Cathy MacMunn, said she consulted with the township's legal firm, and assured Council that a motion of support for the application is not an approval for the project itself, and if Originative wins the bidding process they will have to come back to the township for approval several times, with financial backing in place and environmental assessments,completed and approved, etc.

Council will have the option of saying no, at any time.

When asking for the support motion, Stephen Reader said, “we are not going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on engineering in order to bid on this project unless we have this motion.”

These two scenarios, in similar townships located next to each other, have been completely different.. You would think there would be more scrutiny for a gas turbine project than for a battery storage system, but that has not been the case.

The fact that the North Frontenac proposal is located very near to two of the largest seasonal lakes in the township, as opposed to the turbine project being located in a part of Central Frontenac that is already dotted with gravel quarries, has made a difference.

There are lakes near the Central Frontenac project site, but not right next to it, and there are no resorts in the vicinity of the site either.

Itis true that a motion of support for a company to bid on the project does not force the township to approve the actual project, but it is not that simple

If Central Frontenac had said no, and if North Frontenac ends up saying no, it will be final. It is one of the few cases where a municipal decision is not up for appeal to any outside body.

If the bid is won, by either company, an approval process involving Conservation Authorities and several provincial ministries will ensue. Along the way, the local council will be asked for approvals, but if the applicants have satisfied the conditions set out by the various ministries, and the local council says no, that will not be the end of it.

Not only will they face a potentially expensive appeal process, they may face financial liability as well.

No means no, at this point, but no does not necessarily mean no, later on.

The oppositionin North Frontenac comes from a genuine place, fear that what they love about their township could be damaged, or destroyed, by an industrial facility that they will not really benefit from.

But the implication from the opposition is that, in spite of all the assurances from legal council, and township staff and the applicant, anyone who votes for this will be seen as someone who is willing to put the environment at risk for monetary gain, to help balance the township’s books at the expense of the lakes and the trees.

We will see tomorrow what North Frontenac Council does, but whichever way it goes, the council members are informed and prepared to make this decision.The process has been fair and open, and that is all we can ask for in a democratic system..