Construction to build a new power line and transmission facility to connect Jasper to the province鈥檚 electricity grid is still on schedule with preliminary work expected to begin in September.
ATCO Electric held an open house for the Jasper Interconnection Project on April 6 to discuss the project鈥檚 detailed impact analysis (DIA), which is available for review and comment until April 27.
If approved by Parks Canada and the Alberta Utilities Commission, the company expects the bulk of the construction to take place between Oct. 1 and March 31, 2018. The transmission line is expected to go into service in May 2018.
The project envisions building a new 45-kilometre transmission line that will connect Jasper to another transmission line near the east gate. The project also includes building a new substation that would be located where the existing Palisades power plant is, eight kilometres north of town.
Should the project go ahead, the Palisades Power Plant, which currently supplies the bulk of Jasper鈥檚 electricity, will be decommissioned and torn down.
According to ATCO, the power plant is nearing the end of its operational life span and needs to be replaced.
The Astoria Generating Station also contributes power to the park鈥檚 electrical network, but to a far lesser degree. ATCO has yet to decide what it intends to do with the generating station once the new power line and substation is built.
During the open house Christina Clark, vice-president of planning and operations for ATCO, said the transmission line is more economical and would remove the generation of greenhouse gases from the park.
She also played down concerns about the power line鈥檚 reliability.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e dealing with a transmission line I鈥檇 say the probability of having a failure at a transmission line is lower than it is with the plant,鈥� Clark said, admitting that neither is perfect.
鈥淗aving said that we are very cognizant that this is a radial transmission line and we鈥檙e taking some measures within the project to ensure a high reliability.鈥�
One of those measures includes installing redundant equipment at both substations on either side of the transmission line so that if it something fails there is back up equipment in place to ensure power isn鈥檛 interrupted.
David Hatto, vice-chair of the Jasper Environmental Association (JEA), said he wasn鈥檛 convinced the transmission line will be any more reliable and questioned why it wasn鈥檛 buried underground.
According to Clark, ATCO decided not to not bury the transmission line because of the associated costs and the environmental impact.
鈥淲hen you bury a line not only is it very expensive, but the soil conditions here are such that you would have to do quite a bit of trenching and you would have significant environment impacts,鈥� said Clark.
Landon Bowel, the-right-of-way planner for the project, said ATCO also spent a lot time taking into consideration the visual impact of the transmission line.
鈥淭hrough the routing process we worked with Parks Canada to identify potential viewpoints of high value and when we did that they had specific requests where to avoid,鈥� said Bowel.
According to the DIA, 99 per cent of the transmission line will use previously disturbed areas, such as Kinder Morgan鈥檚 Trans Mountain Pipeline route.
The anticipated line will be built using 13-to 16-metre high wooden poles that will be about 110 metres apart from one another.
ATCO estimates a maximum of 150 workers will be required during the peak construction period plus another 25 workers to decommission the Palisades power plant. Hotel accommodation in Jasper has already been secured to house most of those workers.
The entire project is expected to cost approximately $84 million, according to Bowel.
According to Carl Ruta, the project manager, the project will have a much smaller environmental impact than Kinder Morgan鈥檚 Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.
鈥淵ou can鈥檛 compare us to a pipeline,鈥� said Ruta. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 open up a huge hole and then put a pipeline in the ground. We鈥檙e going to cover the ground and we鈥檙e going to impact it just where we put the poles.鈥�
According to ATCO, the company intends to build 458 structures in total. Each pole will require a 30-inch diameter bore hole.
During the discussion, Ruta admitted that not everything will go according to plan, but said ATCO has plans for that.
鈥淵es, we鈥檙e going to mess up, but this is our mitigation plan,鈥� he said, pointing to the DIA, which includes more than 600 pages of documents about the proposed project.
鈥淲e鈥檝e done a lot of planning, we鈥檙e very confident in our plan going forward and we think this is the best plan for the area,鈥� said Ruta.
Paul Clarke
[email protected]
