LAKE UIST- A change in strategy has emerged for the company planning a major wind/hydroelectric project for this community on the boundary line between Richmond County and the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
Cape Breton Hydro, a subdivision of Cape Breton Explorations Limited, has postponed its decision to set up two 50-75 megawatt hydro-reversible pump turbines that would generate energy from a man-made reservoir operating on Lake Uist property. News of the decision first emerged last week, when the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) confirmed on its Web site that it was no longer conducting an environmental assessment of the hydroelectric portion of the Cape Breton Hydro project, as “the proponent has withdrawn the project.”
However, when reached by The Reporter Tuesday morning, Cape Breton Explorations Limited president Luciano Lisi stressed that the company is still proceeding with the wind-energy portion of its project, which would see 44 wind turbines erected in the Lake Uist area in late 2010 or early-to-mid 2011. He noted that “there’s about five percent remaining” in the environmental assessment process for this portion of the project, which is targeted to generate up to 200 megawatts of wind energy.
“When you involve water of any type, you have to do a Phase 2 [environmental assessment], which is what we’re doing,” Lisi explained. “But for wind, you only need a Phase 1, which is almost complete and should be done in the next few weeks.”
While the hydroelectric portion of the project had undergone revisions over a year ago to eliminate any need to remove water from Lake Uist itself, Cape Breton Hydro decided to delay this aspect of the development after markets for the project’s energy failed to entice markets in Nova Scotia and found unfriendly waters among potential American customers.
“We offered it to Nova Scotia Power in a bid in 2007, and Nova Scotia Power didn’t want it, so the alternative was an export market,” Lisi recalled.
“The export market in the U.S., in 2007, was trading around the $100-mark,” Lisi explained. “Today, it’s trading on an average of $50-to-$60, so we have to wait until it comes back up - and it will come back up, around the end of 2010, since that’s what all the predictions are. So by 2011, it should be back up to 2007 levels.”
With a better economic outlook for his hydroelectric power proposal expected within the next year, Lisi plans to re-file for the federal environmental assessment process and complete the remaining 25 per cent of project construction over the next year.
“A good 70-to-75 per cent of that work is done, and now that project is designed as a closed loop, which means we would not use the lake at all,” said Lisi. “It will be a closed loop with two reservoirs - one at the top and one at the bottom - and no connection to the lake whatsoever. All you have to do is fill it once, and then it comes from natural sources - rain, snow, runoff, and so on.”