RePower Alberta

EDMONTON — Alberta’s emissions management corporation put out a call on Thursday for renewable energy projects willing to compete for $50 million in new funding.

“We’re looking for projects that have strong potential to make significant, verifiable, and sustainable reductions in GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions through the generation and use of renewable energy in Alberta,” said Eric Newell, chair of the Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation.

Renewable energy is naturally replenished. It is derived from feedstock that is renewable and from natural or waste materials including, for example, solar energy, wind energy, mini-hydro, geothermal heat, as well as energy produced from sources such as biomass.

“We expect that the respondents for this EOI (expression of interest) will be diverse,” said Newell in a statement. “We hope to see proposals from industry, municipal utilities, research and development organizations, technology developers and service providers.”

The maximum CCEMC contribution to an individual project for this call for proposals will be $10 million and the maximum project length is five years. The deadline is Nov. 4. This is the third call for proposals issued by the CCEMC. In June the organization committed more than $71 million to 16 clean technology projects from its first call for proposals.

Also in June the organization put out its second call for industrial energy efficiency projects, with 17 projects now chosen to proceed to the full proposal stage.

This competition offers $40 million in funding and closed on Aug. 13. Fifty-two proposals were received from industrial organizations with project budgets totalling $591 million, and requesting a total of $170 million in CCEMC funding. Seventeen projects have been approved to go to the full project proposal stage with budgets totalling $276 million, and requesting $67 million in CCEMC funding.

Information on the shortlisted projects will be available online Oct. 2, at http://ccemc.ca/projects.

Funding for the CCEMC comes from the province, which collects it from industry. Since 2007, Alberta companies that annually produce more than 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are legally required to reduce their greenhouse gas intensity by 12 per cent. One compliance option is to pay into the Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund at $15/tonne.