SPORTS: BANNER YEAR FOR MERRITT MINOR HOCKEY /PAGE 9
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MERRITT HERALD FREE
TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2016 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
ENERGY CRITICAL
POWER MOVE
Heyman tours Merritt Green Energy Project
MGEP ON TRACK FOR JULY START
Artistic rendering of the completed plant. levelton.com David Dyck THE MERRITT HERALD
NDP environment critic George Heyman stopped in for a tour at the Merritt Green Energy Project last Friday. David Dyck/Herald David Dyck THE MERRITT HERALD
Recently appointed NDP environment critic made a stop in Merritt last week to check out progress on the Merritt Green Energy Project, a 40 megawatt biomass-fired power plant for BC Hydro. “This project and its twin project [in Fort St. James] are a good model, they show every sign of success, and they will pave the way for other green energy projects using material that would otherwise have been waste,” said
Heyman told reporters after his tour. “I also think this is just a tremendous opportunity to see some economic development in Merritt itself as well as stable long term jobs being created in Merritt. During the construction phase I’m sure the indirect employment for the service industry is quite tremendous as well.” Heyman had much to say about energy in the province, and argued that rather than spending money on mega projects like the Site C dam near Fort St. John, the government should invest in
energy conservation in public, commercial, and residential buildings. He also pointed to the Revelstoke Unit 6 Project, which he said would produce 45 per cent of the power generated by Site C for an eighteenth of the cost. He also said he’d like to see the province explore the option of investing in the renewable energy industry. “Prices for solar energy and wind energy have dropped very, very steeply in the past ten years and they’re continuing to go down steeply while the storage
technology is improving and the actual energy-generating technologies are getting better every day,” he said. “But we’re not saying to the people of British Columbia, ‘Trust us, our idea is better than the Liberals,’’ we’re saying put them both before the BC Utilities Commission, and let’s let some independent experts make a decision about what’s best for British Columbians, from the point of view of providing the energy we need at a cost effective way as well as creating jobs over the long term.”
Merritt Green Energy Project (MGEP), the giant $230 million skeletal metal structure that sits just off Midday Valley Road in the southwest of town, will be up and running by July, according to Wayne Clarke, plant manager for Veolia North America. “Construction is looking good, we’re looking at putting first fire in about the third week of July,” said Clarke. About six months of commissioning and startup will commence, and the plant is expected to be operating around December. “We’ve got a majority of the pieces all sitting here, everything is in place,” he said. “We’ve got good, qualified trades people here, and things are going very well.” It is no accident that the project was placed within a stone’s throw to the Tolko mill. The plant’s boilers will create energy entirely from fuel harvested from waste from surrounding lumber operations. The 40 megawatt plant will generate 285,000 megawatt hours of electricity per year — enough to power about 40,000 homes per year. A 30-year power-selling agreement with BC Hydro is in place.
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