Virtual reality gives sneak peek at Canada's largest solar farm

A virtual reality solar farm is shown in a simulation at the Spark 2019: Carbon Positive clean energy conference in Edmonton on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019. (CTV News Edmonton)

EDMONTON -- An Alberta energy company is giving people a unique view of its soon-to-be-built solar farm, which will be the largest in Canada.

The virtual reality simulation was unveiled at the Spark 2019: Carbon Positive clean energy conference in Edmonton on Tuesday.

Greengate Power recently received approval to begin construction of the Travers Solar project in southern Alberta. It will generate 400 megawatts of power, enough for more than 100,000 homes.

Dan Balaban, CEO of Greengate, says Alberta is the sunshine state of the north, making it a perfect fit for the solar farm.

"Alberta has a phenomenal solar resource, we have more than 300 days of sunshine, for the purposes of producing electricity our solar resource is as good as that of the state of Florida," he said.

To give people an idea of the size of the project, they have developed a virtual reality high-altitude view of the solar array.

The viewer climbs to the top of the centre structure where they can view the 1.5-million solar panels stretching over 5,000 acres.

“A tool like this virtual reality simulation, I think, is really important for people to understand what the future holds, what the future of Alberta holds because we have tremendous renewable energy potential and we will see more and more of these projects," said Balaban.

The Travers Solar project, located in Vulcan County, is estimated to cost $500 million and be operational in 2021.