Bekevar Wind project comes online
November 26, 2024, 11:09 am
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
After years of planning and construction, the Bekevar Wind and Power Line Project southeast of Kipling is at the energize stage, officially going online Nov. 14.
“There are 36 turbines up, and they should all be fully operational shortly after the event,” said Rebecca Acikahte, Business Development Manager for Cowessess Ventures. The Cowessess First Nation (through their Awasis Nehiyawewini Energy Development Limited Partnership) partnered with Innagreen Investments back in 2019 to develop a facility in the RMs of Hazelwood and Kingsley, just north of Moose Mountain Provincial Park.
Five years later, the 202 MW project will be adding enough electricity to the SaskPower grid to power an average of 100,000 Saskatchewan homes. In order to make the connection from those three dozen turbines to the grid, a new 230kV single circuit power line was constructed, nine kilometers in length to connect the Kennedy Switching Station.
The Bekevar project is the largest of its kind in the province, part of an ongoing green commitment for Cowessess as Acikahte explained.
“We have the Awasis Solar Project in Regina, just 10 megawatts, and then originally on that same site, we have a wind/solar battery storage project, which is the first commercial scale project of its kind in the world,” she said. “That started in 2013 and finished in 2018 with the addition of the solar. That brings in some revenue every month, and my office is out of the cabin there. It’s run off of the project, so it’s net-zero—it doesn’t use up any energy off the grid.”
That project is just outside city limits, between the scissors shape created by the TransCanada to the north and Highway 33 running southeast and consists of an 800kW wind turbine, a 500kW solar array, and 400kWh battery system.
The Bekevar project received $173 million in investments from the Canadian Infrastructure Bank, $50 million from Natural Resources Canada via the Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways Program, and $98 million in debt financing from German-based Norddeutsche Landesbank. The wind energy project spans 20,000 acres of land through the RMs of Hazelwood and Kingsley, and over 500 acres (three quarter-sections) on the Cowessess First Nation.
Energizing the future
Looking to the future, Acikahte is excited for what projects are yet to come, and what that means for Cowessess.
“We have a partnership newly formed called the Seven Stars Energy Project, and it’s with Enbridge and six nations from Treaty Four, including the Métis Nation, which they don’t really get Indigenous participation on,” she explained. “So that will be 200 more megawatts of wind by Weyburn.”
The Seven Stars Energy Project will encompass a 200 square km area southeast of Weyburn with engagement between Enbridge and the Cowessess First Nation, George Gordon First Nation, Kahkewistahaw First Nation, Pasqua First Nation, the Métis Nations-Saskatchewan, and White Bear First Nation. That project is targeted to be operational in 2027, and Acikahte noted there’s yet another 200 MW wind project plus a couple 100 MW solar projects also in very early development stages.
“So we potentially have a lot more coming up in the next year or two,” she said.
“I think for Cowessess to participate in that, it’s a way that we can continue to be stewards of the land as original people, and help to take care of the province and share resources in a sustainable way, not creating waste,” Acikahte concluded. “Something like a wind project still allows us to farm and have the migratory paths of animals and it’s not very disruptive if done in the right way.”
