Construction underway for large solar farm in Summerside

Summerside’s supersized solar farm Summerside is the site of an impressive new solar farm that will cover 80 acres and run nearly 50-thousand solar panels.

Construction is underway on a solar farm in Summerside, which is set to be one of the largest in Atlantic Canada.

The new facility will generate a quarter of the power the city requires.

Summerside already makes about 40 per cent of the electricity it needs, once finished this solar farm will bring that number up to 65 per cent.

"It’s the way to go, way of the future, is the green energy," said Summerside Mayor Basil Stewart. "We have our windmill farm and we have all kinds of chargers around the city for electric cars, we have a number of electric vehicles."

It comes with a $65.8 million price tag, split between all three levels of government.

The solar farm will replace power now being supplied from New Brunswick, which will make the city greener and more self-sufficient.

"We keep the energy in the community, we generate it locally," said Director of Municipal Services for Summerside, Greg Gaudet. "We also keep the quarters in the community, so the profits stir around locally instead of being exported."

The electricity won’t be any cheaper than residents are paying now, but it has knock-on effects to the tax base and in job creation.

Hundreds of workers are required for the building phase.

"Well, as far as I know, people are very pleased about it," said Stewart. "There’s a lot of construction jobs, a lot of construction work, and it is the way the future."

The farm will have a total of 48,200 solar panels covering 80 acres, including two acres of battery storage to even out peak power generation and use times.

"And it also uses readaptive use of land for the city’s wellfield," said Gaudet. "Where normally there’d be no development happening on this particular land, the city decided to repurpose it for a renewable energy project that’s benign to the water source."

The project was supposed to be completed in May, but has been delayed by the pandemic.

Installation of the solar panels will begin in July and the farm is set to be fully operational by the end of 2022.