Islanders are invited to attend a public information session this week on the Province’s plans to build a 30-megawatt wind farm in eastern Kings County.
The Prince Edward Island Energy Corporation will host the open house session as part of the environmental impact assessment process. It is an opportunity for people to see details of the project, ask questions and provide comments.
The project consists of erecting 10 turbines, with three megawatts of generating capacity each, and the associated infrastructure to support the facility. Construction is tentatively scheduled to start this summer with the facility operational in the fall of 2006. Wind energy at North Cape currently supplies five per cent of PEI’s electricity needs. The addition of another 30 megawatts of wind energy at the other end of the Island would bring that figure to approximately 12 per cent.
The public information session will be held at the Eastern Kings Community Centre in Munns Road on Thursday, March 30, 3 - 8 p.m. Participating in the session will be representatives from:
• the PEI Energy Corporation, which will own and manage the wind farm;
• Frontier Power Systems, which was contracted to provide project design services;
• Bird Studies Canada, which was contracted to measure the potential impacts on the bird population, which is traditionally the main concern related to wind farm developments;
• Maritime Electric Company Limited, which is expanding its transmission infrastructure in the area to carry the power from the turbines to the electricity grid; and
• Vestas-Canadian Wind Technologies Inc., which is the turbine supplier.
The Environmental Impact Statement for the wind farm project is now available online at www.gov.pe.ca/go/easternkingswindfarm and may be viewed at Access PEI, Souris and the PEI Department of Environment, Energy and Forestry, 4th Floor, 11 Kent Street, Charlottetown.
Members of the public may provide written comments on the project proposal for a period of 10 days following the public information session. Forms will be provided at this session and all comments should be directed to Greg Wilson, Environmental Assessment Co-ordinator, PEI Department of Environment, Energy and Forestry, P.O. Box 2000, Charlottetown, PEI, C1A 7N8.