Yellowknife (Feb 28/03) - As the price of fossil fuels soar throughout the world, the territorial government is seeking new ways to drop the dinosaur.

Dennis Bevington

A discussion paper titled Towards an Energy Strategy is being toured throughout the territory by Dennis Bevington, advisor to the premier's energy secretariat.

Bevington was in the Delta last week to present the document in Holman, Paulatuk, Sachs Harbour, Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk.

"Our primary goal is to introduce the discussion document and get some feedback from the communities," Bevington said.

The secretariat is also working with the Aurora Research Institute and NTPC on a wind assessment project in the Mackenzie Delta.

The group is looking at possible sites Sachs Harbour, Holman, Paulatuk and Tuktoyaktuk to produce wind generated energy.

"We're looking at how we can develop the wind resource that we know is there," he said. "How we can make it economic and how we can design a long-term plan that would see a wind resource become valuable and useful to the people here."

An array of wind mills or "wind farm" could produce enough energy to reduce or eliminate a community's dependence on expensive and dirty diesel fuel.

The group will examine various sites that would be best suited to building a wind farm.

"The wind site can make a huge difference in the power generated," Bevington explained. "A 10 per cent increase in average wind speed will result in 30 per cent extra power generated from a wind turbine."

"These are exponential increases and placement is key."

The energy secretariat has a two-year mandate and a $2 million budget to develop a new energy strategy and has also funded various projects in the territory.

"About 50 per cent of that money has gone into research and development projects in the communities," Bevington said.

They have provided some funding to NTPC to conduct the energy residential energy audit program in the Delta. At no cost, home owners can have an energy assessment done on their homes and recommendations will be made how they can cut down on energy consumption.

"In our meetings with people across the North, they're saying they need understand how to better use energy in their homes," he said.

Bevington said innovations in new appliances are saving homeowners money in energy costs, as well as switching from electric water heaters to fuel oil fired units.

They are also doing some testing of a combined heat and power system in Norman Wells similar to the turbines installed here in the rec centre.

As for looking forward to inexpensive natural gas from a Mackenzie Valley pipeline, Bevington said, that's not a practical solution at present and may not be inexpensive in the future.

"Natural gas from a pipeline won't be available for the communities until about 2010," he said, adding that we should be looking towards reducing consumption first.

"Any gas in the pipeline would also be subject to NAFTA pricing conditions," he said. "People here would be paying North American prices, less the toll charges."

The projected costs will rise as does the consumption, so gas may not be much of a bargain in 2010.

In Tuk, the group discussed switching the community over to natural gas, but Bevington said the infrastructure would be too costly.

"The volume may not be large enough to make the infrastructure required to put in natural gas economic," he said. "Hooking up the town of Inuvik was a $30 or $40 million investment."

The secretariat will visit every community in the NWT over the next month, gathering feedback directly and accepting written submissions until March 25.

Following that, a draft energy strategy will be presented to cabinet in April, with the final document going to cabinet in June.