Brownfields to Brightfields: Re-Purposing Alberta's Unreclaimed Oil and Gas Sites for Solar Photovoltaics
Alyssa Bruce
A portion of Alberta’s thousands of unreclaimed ‘brownfield’ oil and gas sites could be re-purposed as ‘brightfields’ with small-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) installations accessing the Province’s abundant solar energy resource and generating potential cost-savings for solar PV developers and oil and gas companies through re-use of disturbed land and existing infrastructure including access roads and grid tie-ins. Re-purposing these sites aligns with provincial objectives to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation, address brownfield oil and gas site liabilities and mitigate cumulative effects of energy development on southern Alberta’s high-value grasslands and agricultural lands where the Province’s solar energy resource is the highest.
Supporting the re-purposing concept, Alberta Electric System Operator reports show significant growth in small-scale solar PV installations over the past decade, particularly micro-generation systems which service the generator’s onsite electricity demand. Small-scale installations also include distribution-connected generation systems that exports electricity to service local demand. Land use is an important consideration for solar PV installations as, according to a 2018 report by Solas Energy Consulting, around 50% of systems in Alberta are ground-mounted.
Keith Hirsche, President of Elemental Energy (Alberta 2003) Inc. (EEI), has been investigating the re-purposing of Alberta’s brownfield oil and gas sites for small-scale solar PV and presenting the potential benefits to interested stakeholders since 2016. In 2018, EEI, in partnership with the Municipal District (MD) of Taber, formed the RenuWell Project to develop a framework for municipalities to assess re-purposing opportunities5. The RenuWell Project team successfully applied to the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre’s (MCCAC) Community Generation Capacity Building Program in March 2019 which enabled broad stakeholder engagement regarding the re-purposing concept and development of policy recommendations. Further, the RenuWell Project team, in collaboration with the MD of Taber, Irrigation Canal Power Co-op Ltd., Canadian Solar, and SkyFire Energy Inc., have initiated a re-purposing pilot to deploy 2 megawatts (MW) of distribution-connected solar PV generation on brownfield oil and gas sites in the Taber area. In August 2020, the RenuWell Project received $2.1 million in funding from the MCCAC’s Municipal Community Generation Challenge supporting pilot deployment to show the benefits of expansion of the re-purposing concept.
The RenuWell Project pilot is garnering increasing media and stakeholder attention and is on a path to successful implementation however formal institutions, such as policies and regulations, and informal institutions, such as norms and values, may influence the expansion of this sustainable endeavour. Focussing on institutional influences and incorporating the dimensions of energy, environment, and policy development, my capstone research project investigated, “What are the opportunities and barriers to developing solar PV infrastructure on Alberta’s unreclaimed oil and gas sites?” My academic supervisor for the project was Dr. David Ince and my partner organization representative was Keith Hirsche.
I conducted my research through semi-structured interviews and document analysis as the findings from qualitative methods can be useful to policymakers by providing a description of the context for decision-making. Throughout May and June 2020, I interviewed thirteen key stakeholders and subject matter experts who had varied backgrounds related to the re-purposing concept and analyzed the transcriptions for themes to address the research question. Concurrently, I analyzed eighteen documents including policies, reports, public records, newspaper articles, and blog posts.
The research findings suggested that Alberta’s existing institutions support the re-purposing of remediated brownfield oil and gas sites located on private land for solar PV micro-generation system deployment. Policy and regulatory ambiguity hinder broader expansion of the re-purposing concept by negatively affecting the economics of distribution-connected projects, limiting the number of re-purposing candidate sites, and reinforcing constraining mindsets regarding re-purposing in both the power generation and oil and gas industries. Specifically, the findings suggested that the economic viability of distribution-connected generation projects is impacted by the complex and variable grid interconnection approvals process as well as uncertainties surrounding compensation to generators for exported electricity and future cost-sharing exposure for grid infrastructure upgrades. Additionally, unique brownfield oil and gas site characteristics, the inability to develop solar PV on public lands, and differing timelines between oil and gas brownfield site closure and solar PV development creates uncertainty surrounding scalability.
In my capstone paper, I provide policy and regulatory recommendations supporting the expansion of the re-purposing concept through prioritization of brownfield site use, mitigation of cost uncertainties affecting distribution-connected generation, and facilitation of collaboration and data-sharing within Alberta’s oil and gas and power generation industries. As the issue of brownfield oil and gas site liability is not unique to Alberta, a well-developed policy and regulatory framework for implementation of re-purposing brownfield oil and gas sites as solar PV brightfields has potential application in other jurisdictions.
alyssa.bruce@ucalgary.ca