Wind ‘prospectors’ knocking on local doors
With a new intake of bids to be received by IESO for renewable energy projects, reports have been received of a wind company looking for land in Southgate.
“We have heard from people near Dundalk that a Germany-based company is prospecting for landowners willing to lease land for industrial wind turbines,” said Jane Wilson of Wind Concerns Ontario.
The group advises anyone approached to see a lawyer While information may say option or option/lease, “when you sign it, you’re done,” she said. “The term ‘option’ is a bit misleading.”
She said that the company name that had been given is PNE, but she had not heard any details about the project size or area.
At that time, no wind company had approached Southgate council, she said.
Southgate Township did have a piece of correspondence about wind turbines on its Mar. 20 agenda, but it was from a multi-municipal group.
Southgate has passed a motion that it was not a willing host to turbines in the past.
At the last council meeting, a letter from the Multi-Municipal Energy Working Group was received that recommended that all municipalities renew their unwilling host motions until the province addresses concerns about present setbacks from houses and roads.
Deputy Mayor Barbara Dobreen asked Southgate staff for a report on the new procurement process, the planning act as it applies to wind turbine siting and any other related information.
The correspondence referred to the ability of a municipality to use zoning bylaws to govern location of turbines in the municipality.
The present chair of the Multi-Municipal Energy Working Group is a Grey Highlands council member, Tom Allwood.
The correspondence, dated Feb. 11, said the group would be presenting to the Public Health Unit in march on health concerns in the vicinity of wind turbine projects.
The IESO said its forecasts show demand increasing on average two per cent a year over the coming decades, driven primarily by economic and population growth, mining and steel industry electrification, and growth in electric-vehicle industries.
The statement was made in the IESO Annual Planning Outlook for 2025-2050, released March 2024.
The intake will be for “non-emitting” generation such as wind, solar, hydro and bioenergy. The announcement also states that IESO will look at “options to re-acquire, upgrade, or expand existing facilities”.
M.T. Fernandes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Dundalk Herald
