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How to power the NWT
Territorial government deserts Taltson grid expansion plan, pulls people together for second energy round-table talks in two years

Randi Beers
Northern News Services
Published Monday, November 3, 2014

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The day has come, once again, for those who have been waiting to have their say about the future of energy in the NWT.

NNSL photo/graphic

The territorial government is hosting round-table discussions on the future of energy this week in Yellowknife and Dettah after a keystone of its energy action plan, expansion of the Taltson hydro dam, shown here, came back almost double the expected cost in a recent feasibility study. - photo courtesy of Deze Energy Corporation

After the territorial government's desertion of the Taltson dam expansion project last month, the government is hosting a series of round-table discussions on how to curb the territory's reliance on diesel fuel starting tonight, Nov. 3, in Yellowknife and concluding Nov. 4 in Dettah.

The event marks the second time in two years the government has brought thinkers together to form an energy action plan.

A similar set of meetings was held in November 2012 to inform the Energy Action Plan, which was unveiled in December 2013.

However, this plan has since been abandoned.

In September, Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger announced his department must abandon the hydro grid expansion - the keystone of the 2013 energy action plan - because a feasibility study came back with a price of $1.2 billion, a number almost double what the government had anticipated.

This realization, coupled with the government's Sept. 26 announcement it would kick in $20 million to Northwest Territories Power

Corporation (NTPC) in order to avoid a 13 per cent rate hike, is why the government is bringing energy users and industry experts back to the drawing board.

Now, all ideas are back on the table and this time around and renewable energy is set to be a hot topic.

"(NTPC) recognizes the current way of operating is no longer sustainable," said Miltenberger in an Oct. 20 minister's statement.

"Rates have reached their limit of affordability. What occurred this past summer, while an environmental anomaly, has been a catalyst that has initiated serious discussion on potentially game-changing direction and focus."

He then indicated the government is willing to consider any sustainable option that "would not increase the cost of power to the customer."

The meetings are being called an energy charrette, which is a period of intense design and planning activity.

The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment is bringing in researchers with experience in innovative energy projects to the charrette. These will include the Carlton University research team tasked with designing the self-sustaining Canadian High Arctic Research Station in Cambridge Bay.

For the research station, the team has developed a "utility in a box" energy solution, which provides solid waste treatment, sewage treatment, electricity, heat and grid stability for an estimated 17 cents per kilowatt hour.

Each of these individual multi-purpose energy generators have the capacity to provide electricity to approximately 150 people.

Biomass also promises to be a hot topic, as the government has invited Axel Lambion, managing director of Lambion Energy Solutions, a German biomass energy company that has completed more than 3,400 hundred biomass projects across the world.

Louis Azzolini, executive director of Arctic Energy Alliance, will also be presenting at the meetings.

In an interview with News/North, he stressed energy conservation and efficiency as the most effective way for the territory to reduce energy costs, especially in the short term.

"Once you start dealing with your energy consumption and get a handle on that, the next progression, if you want to call it that, is asking what other ways we can (generate power)," he said. "The analogy I would give is if your car ain't running, well, do you go out and change the engine or do you put air in the tires? Once you've checked the tires you can say, 'OK, maybe we need a new car."

He pointed to simple things homeowners can do, such as checking the pumps on home heating systems. Some heating systems have dual pumps and leaving just one pump on for the entire year can tack as much as $5,000 to heating bills, he explained.

Craig Scott, executive director of Ecology North, also pointed to the importance of energy conservation in creating an energy plan.

His organization will also participate in the discussions this week and he plans to renew his call for the territorial government to adopt a carbon tax.

"It has made a huge difference in British Columbia," he said. "And we would like to encourage the (NWT) to think about using it."

Scott imagines a carbon tax would add a few cents to gas at the pump, and those extra pennies would be funneled into a government account that would fund other energy efficient initiatives.

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