Innisfail looks to be one of the first urban municipalities partnering on a solar farm project.

U.K. based Temporis Developments, which now has an office in Calgary, made a pitch to Innisfail Town Council Monday night as they have their eye on some land north of the golf course, adjacent to Highway 54.

Temporis Managing Director Robbie Donaldson explains what they're proposing.

“70-80 acres, approximately 50,000 panels that will just be laid out in sort of straight rows in a field.  The same panels that you would see on the roof of a house or a shed, they sit on a pile that’s driven into the ground, and then sort of a rack or frame that’s put on top of the pile and then the panels just sit on top of that frame, pretty simple design”.

In terms of the potential output for the farm,

“About 25,000 megawatt hours a year would be generated, this would be tied down once the site has completed its detailed design phase, but anywhere between enough power for 3-4,000 houses a year would be generated by this site”.

The company received a warm welcome from Town Council at a special meeting Monday night; CAO Todd Becker explains what their partnership with the company would look like.

“They would partner in the form of a lease agreement for the land use and there is also discussion about them providing some dollars towards our carbon tax that we are required to pay and also perhaps a community fund for some social and cultural programming perhaps”.

Council made a motion to write a letter of intent in support of the proposal, with hopes to negotiate a lease agreement with the company by the end of March.

Temporis would also be working jointly with Innisfail's Bilton Manufacturing and Welding Ltd., and if all of their environmental work and permits were to fall into place they would look to start building the solar farm in May of 2019.

So far there is only one solar project of this scale in Alberta, 17 MW solar farm in Brooks with 50,000 panels, but this project would mark the first project within an urban municipality.

(photo of ground mounted panels courtesy of Temporis Developments)