ACCIONA Energy’s fourth wind park in Canada enters service, an investment of 82 million euros

The 45 MW Lamèque wind park in New Brunswick province supplies energy equivalent to the consumption of 8,000 homes.

The distribution company NB Power will purchase the power generated under a long-term purchasing contract.

ACCIONA Windpower has supplied the wind turbines -thirty 1.5 MW machines- and ACCIONA Infrastructure has built the facility taking advantage of intra-group synergies.

ACCIONA Energy has put its 45 MW Lamèque wind park into commercial service following an investment of 115 million Canadian dollars (82 million euros at the current exchange rate). It is the company's fourth wind park in the country, giving it a total operational capacity of 181 MW. The facility, located on the Acadia peninsula in the province of New Brunswick on the Atlantic coast of Canada, is wholly owned by the company.

It is the result of cooperation between business units of the ACCIONA Group that have exploited intra-group synergies. ACCIONA Energy is the main developer of the wind park, which it owns; ACCIONA Windpower has supplied the wind turbines (thirty 1.5 MW machines) and ACCIONA Infrastructure, in a temporary consortium with the Canadian company Tetra Tech, has undertaken the construction (including the civil work, assembly of turbines and electric power delivery infrastructures).

The Lamèque wind park will produce emission-free energy equivalent to the electricity consumption of around 8,000 Canadian homes. The power will be purchased by the distribution company NB Power under a long-term contract.

The project, developed by the Cooperative d'Energie Renouvelable de Lamèque in collaboration with ACCIONA, has received financial support from the Canadian government under the ecoEnergy for Renewable Power program for a total sum of 13.79 million Canadian dollars (9.8 million euros), through a production incentive available for ten years.

Praise from the Government of New Brunswick

"We are very proud of this project and are pleased to see it successfully generating energy for the region. Proof that with the right partners and hard work, we can create clean energy that benefits the community via job creation and economic growth" said Dan Foley, CEO of ACCIONA Energy North America.

For his part, New Brunswick Energy Minister Craig Leonard congratulated the company "for all their hard work in constructing and maintaining this facility".

NB Power CEO Gaetan Thomas pointed out that "our partnership with ACCIONA Energy plays an important role in further diversifying our generation mix to include more renewable energy. It assists us in achieving our renewable targets, contributes to lower emissions and supports our vision of sustainability".

Presence in Canada

With the start-up of Lamèque, ACCIONA Energy now has four wind parks in Canada totaling 181 MW. Two of them, Magrath and Chin Chute, both with a capacity of 30 MW, are located in Alberta province, and the third, Ripley (76 MW), is in Ontario. The previous three wind parks are owned in partnership with Canadian partners Suncor and Enbridge.

ACCIONA is also present in Canada in the infrastructure sector. It has five projects developed under the public-private partnership (PPP) model: two turnpike roadways (the Southeast Stoney Trail, in Calgary, and the new A-30 Châteauguay-Vaudreil-Dorion in Quebec), a divided highway (the Windsor Essex Parkway, in Ontario) and two hospitals (Forth St. John, in British Columbia, and Royal Jubilee, in Victoria).