At a special council meeting Thursday night, Municipality of Bluewater councillors unanimously voted down plans to bring a multi-billion-dollar underground energy storage project to Huron County. The proposed project would have stored electricity from the grid in underground depleted natural gas caverns near Bayfield and return it to the grid when energy demand is high. Over 120 acres of farmland would have been required for the project, proposed by Bedrock Energy and Capstone Infrastructure. Many local residents voiced their opposition to the project, raising concerns about the loss of farmland, pollution, water quality, and noise. Bedrock was seeking support from Bluewater council in their application to the IESO. Without it, the project will not move forward during this round of applications. Neighbours say with so many depleted natural gas caverns across Ontario, applications like this one, could be coming to communities across Ontario in the near future.
