Solar panel project on hold for Quinte Conservation

By Ashliegh Gehl

A solar panel project planned for orphaned farmland beyond the trails at Quinte Conservation isn’t going to happen any time soon.

Bryon Keene, water resources manager for Quinte Conservation, said they’re waiting for the application to be approved by the province of Ontario.

“They’re in a queue,” said Keene. “That queue is long. I understand there’s 20,000 applicants.”

Keene said they’re planning to take advantage of Ontario’s Feed-In Tariff program. It’s the first FIT program for renewable energy in Canada allowing businesses and homeowners to sell solar energy back to the grid.

“We’ve taken a good look at the land in question,” said Keene. “It was once farmed. It was sort of poor agricultural land and it doesn’t grow trees very well. It’s in a conservation area… that portion never gets used. So it’s land that is somewhat orphaned.”

In March, Quinte Conservation put out a request for proposal for a solar power development partner. The land blueprinted for the solar project is 42 acres along Wallbridge-Loyalist Road in Quinte West.

At this time there is no fixed cost for the three-and-a-half megawatt solar panel project, but Keene said he thinks, “it is in the neighbourhood of $20 million.”

“We think this is probably a good use in-so-far that if it works and we get all the panels in place then we’re going to be offsetting a lot of carbon based fuels used for power. So I think in the end it’s still good for the environment in that, that energy is clean energy.”

If approved, the project would be completed within five years and the money generated would go towards conservation maintenance.

“What we gain from this would be the lease of the land,” said Keene. “So it’s a very small revenue that we’d be getting. The company that’s doing this is based out of Picton. So that’s good, it’s a local company. They’ll be manufactured in Picton.”

The company manufacturing the panels is Solar Science Inc.