Ottawa city council throws support behind rural battery energy storage facility

Battery storage pods at Orsted's Eleven Mile Solar Center lithium-ion battery storage energy facility sits on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Coolidge, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Ottawa city council overturned a unanimous rejection of a municipal support resolution (MSR) for a controversial battery energy storage system (BESS) in the South March area.

Last week, the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee voted unanimously to recommend council reject the support resolution for the Evolugen project on Marchurst Road following a marathon meeting that heard from dozens of public delegations opposed to building the project in that location.

Issues such as the ability for emergency services to reach the site in the event of a fire, how to evacuate nearby residents, and concerns about possible contamination to the local water table were raised.

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On Wednesday, however, city councillors voted overwhelmingly in favour of granting the municipal support resolution, following a motion by Kanata North Coun. Cathy Curry, seconded by Capital Ward Coun. Shawn Menard.

Councillors voted 20 to 3 in favour of granting the municipal support resolution. The only councillors who voted against were Wilson Lo, David Brown, and Clarke Kelly. Coun. Tim Tierney was not present for the vote.

The project was initially pitched for Fitzroy Harbour, but council denied its support. It was later moved 13 kilometres away to the South March area.

Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) granted Evolugen, a Gatineau-based company, a contract to build the facility, but according to Curry’s motion, the company must provide proof of municipal support to the IESO before Jan. 26, 2026, in order for the project to proceed.

The motion notes that a municipal support resolution is “not a planning approval, and if approved would not commit Council to any future land use decisions with respect to the facility.”

Curry said the BESS project would make the city’s grid greener and provide economic benefits to Ottawa.

“Energy is the new gold,” she said, noting that demands on the electrical grid will come from a variety of sources, including the expansion of LRT and the electrification of OC Transpo’s bus fleet and of City of Ottawa vehicles.

The motion also notes that the Province of Ontario, the IESO, and local hydro utilities “have recognized and affirmed the critical role that battery energy storage systems will play in ensuring energy certainty and reliability as electricity demands in the Ottawa Region will continue to exponentially grow over the next twenty years.”

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West Carleton-March Coun. Clarke Kelly, in whose ward the facility would be built, said the voices of Ottawa’s rural residents are being ignored.

“The community most impacted by this installation has reached out in overwhelming numbers to demonstrate they remain uncomfortable with what is being proposed and where it is being proposed,” he said.

“My community is not a bunch of NIMBYs or rural residents who are resistant to change. We understand that for a multitude of reasons, we must diversify our sources of energy and strengthen our grid with technologies such as battery energy storage.”

Kelly said while residents had concerns about the proposal, they were not opposed to the facility itself.

“I will never accept that what has occurred here over the last two weeks was in any way appropriate or acceptable,” he said. “When we talked at the first rural summit in 16 years about making sure that rural voices were heard, this is exactly what we were talking about. If West Carleton was its own municipality, this project would not get an MSR for this location.”

As part of the process, council approved a direction to staff to ensure that Evolugen establish a “Community Development Fund” by entering into a host municipality responsibility agreement with the City of Ottawa, through which it would provide an amount of at least $250,000 per year if the project proceeds.

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe told reporters the city is under pressure from the provincial government to approve projects like this.

“The provincial government provides the opportunity for a municipal support resolution but the provincial government also makes it clear that it wants to see these kinds of projects go ahead, so it puts us in an uncomfortable position of having to be a part of a process over which we don’t have the ultimate jurisdiction and maybe in long run, it would be better if these decisions were made at the provincial level,” he said.

“Having said all that, this is neither the beginning nor the end of the process. Going forward there will be more hurdles that will need to be crossed before this goes ahead and there will be public consultation as well.”

If all regulatory approvals go forward, completion of the site is expected by 2027. Evolugen’s website says the facility will provide benefits to the community, including grants for local organizations, job opportunities for residents, and reduced energy costs.