'There's wind in Manitoba' - A matter of time until it's farmed

By PAUL TURENNE

When Bob Spensley was looking for a place for his company to set up a new wind-powered generating station, he had to look no further than his better half. "My wife is from Winnipeg," said the president of Sequoia Energy and a new company called Bison Wind Inc. "Sequoia was looking in Alberta, in Oregon, but my wife said 'There's wind in Manitoba. I know there's wind in Manitoba.' So I followed her advice."

And Spensley is glad he did.

Bison Wind, the company created through a partnership between Sequoia and GREP -- a company owned by the Danish wind power giant Vestas, could very well be the first company to ever set up a working wind farm in Manitoba.

For almost two years, Bison Wind has been working toward establishing a $200 million, 99.9-megawatt wind farm near St. Leon, located about 60 km south of Portage la Prairie.

The project would see 63 turbines mounted on 80-metre towers with three 41-metre-long blades harvesting enough Manitoba wind to power 40,000 average homes on a blustery day, said Spensley.

He hopes to make an official announcement about the project "in the near future."

Bison Wind isn't the only company looking to set up shop in the province.

Windcor Power Systems, Enbridge Inc., and even Manitoba Hydro have set up sites around the province to test wind speeds.

"We're seeing if there's enough speed to make the installation of turbines viable," said Shannon deDelley, president of Windcor.

The average wind speed 50 metres above the ground should be in the 18 to 28 km/h range for a wind farm to be viable, he said.

'It's going to be good'

Windcor installed a meteorological tower near St. Laurent, 70 km northwest of Winnipeg, last month in hopes of setting up a 30 to 50-megawatt wind farm in the area.

"We're pretty confident it's going to be good," said deDelley.

The earliest the wind farm could open is the end of next year, he said.

Before then, Windcor has to have environmental approval from the government and an agreement with Manitoba Hydro to buy the power.

NDP Energy, Science and Technology Minister Tim Sale said his department is working to support the companies to ensure deals like that can happen.

Manitoba Hydro has set a target of 250 megawatts of the province's power coming from wind by 2014, but the provincial cabinet would like to see 600 megawatts -- about 10% of Manitoba's power -- being produced by wind by 2008, said Sale.

"We see it as a good partnership. Hydro will make money on the power they buy, the farmers will make money by having the turbines in their fields, and the companies will make money on their wind farms," he said.