Silicon Ranch and Shell Canada are planning to build a 58 MW solar farm adjacent to Shell’s Energy and Chemicals Park Scotford near Edmonton, Alberta. The solar farm will be key in helping to transform Scotford into one of Shell’s five energy and chemicals parks, providing customers with lower-carbon fuels and products.
“We are transforming Scotford into a world-class site that will provide our customers with lower-carbon fuels and the products they desire,” states Mark Pattenden, Shell Canada’s senior vice president of chemicals and products. “Partnerships like this will enable Scotford to contribute to Shell’s overall plan to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, in step with society.”
Silicon Ranch, the North American solar platform for Shell and a large independent power producer in the United States, will build, own and operate the solar farm – its first in Canada – with all power generation capacity dedicated to Shell’s Scotford refinery for the next 25 years.
“Shell’s commitment to purchase the power from our facility will catalyze our own significant capital investment in Strathcona County, creating hundreds of local jobs during construction and generating critical tax revenues over the life of the project,” says Reagan Farr, Silicon Ranch’s co-founder and CEO.
The project will be the first large-scale solar installation in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland. Construction will begin in 2022, and the solar farm is expected to begin providing electricity to the refinery by the fourth quarter in 2023. Once built, the project will provide 20% of the refinery’s energy needs with renewable electricity.
Shell’s transformation of Scotford into an energy and chemicals park complements the site’s leading positions in energy efficiency, and carbon capture and storage (CCS). Renewable power and CCS will enable Scotford to process new feedstocks such as bio-oils or waste oils to significantly reduce CO2 emitted in the production of fuels today. Scotford’s transition into a fully integrated energy and chemicals park is anticipated to happen over the course of a decade.
Shell Canada previously built a 5 MW solar farm at Scotford that will start up this fall and offset emissions from the Shell-owned chemicals plants.
