Geothermal Village could become the kick-start for more things to come in Canada

Valemount, BC/ Canada (source: flickr/ Matt Howry, creative commons)

Alexander Richter 14 Eki 2016

Canada is sitting on tremendous geothermal resources, but is likely the only country on the “Pacific Ring of Fire” not to make use of it for electricity generation. Over the years, I have followed the ambitions of various companies from Canada to bring geothermal development home, both professionally and in my role as Board Member of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA).

Fighting with big opposition from various parties, both political, energy sector, oil & gas players, the geothermal sector has never really seen much support. With an oil sector on its knees in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and a different Federal government in Ottawa, things now look more promising than ever before.

The endurance of developers, such as Borealis GeoPower, DEEP and others to not give up on dreams to realize a geothermal power project is admirable and hopefully will be successful. Canadian companies have worked internationally with great success, among others in the U.S., Africa, Central America, South America and Europe.

There are also various service companies that have worked directly or indirectly on geothermal projects internationally. But there has so far been no successful development of a geothermal power plant.

This might change, with concrete plans for a geothermal power plant in the city of Valemount in the province of British Columbia. We have reported about this project of Borealis GeoPower and its partners. Another project in Saskatchewan is also in the race of becoming the first geothermal power plant in the country.

Geothermal energy though is not only a great source for power generation, but likely with even more opportunities for direct use applications using heat, such as greenhouse, house heating and related applications – and this across all of Canada.

As shown in other countries, projects that are able to combine heat and power generations can have a great economic impact, not only in the most economic utilisation of the resource and more profits for the developer, but also for economic development of a community/ region.

So it is likely not surprising that Borealis GeoPower is proposing a “GeoPark” concept to the community of Valemount. The company is not only planning a 15 MW geothermal power plant, but also to explore options of developing the project as a supplier of heat to various businesses – existing and new – for the municipality. As far as I remember there have been talks about a brewing company, greenhouse operations and more.

Valemount, located in the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, is blessed with geothermal hot springs right next to the city. A geothermal power plant could essentially also feed electricity into the provincial power grid. There is a hope by both the developer and the community that the local utility, BC Hydro, will see the opportunity of the project for the province.

If successful this project could have a great impact on further development, not only in British Columbia and neighbouring Alberta, but across Canada.

There are today already some heating operations utilising geothermal heat from abandoned mines in the east of the country.

Source: Hydrogen Fuel News