Ottawa: Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent indicated in an interview September 9 that he might require Maxim Power Corp.’s new coal-fired power plant in Alberta to comply with Ottawa’s new emissions rules for new power plants, regardless of when it is completed.
A number of organizations sent a letter to federal Environment Minister Peter Kent August 11, calling on him to impose Canada’s new regulations restricting emissions from coal-fired plants on the proposed new Maxim coal plant in Alberta.
On August 10, Maxim Power Corp. received final approval from Alberta’s utilities regulator to build a 500-megawatt supercritical coal-fired power plant, located north of Grande Cache, Alberta. The plant would start operating just prior to federal regulations on coal-fired electricity coming into effect, potentially exempting it from the stricter rules. But Kent said he never intended to create a loophole that companies could exploit by rushing plants to completion early. Rather, he said, there is normally a grace period to avoid the creation of stranded capital; long-term investments made under earlier rules that would become worthless if the new ones were to apply immediately.
The federal government is published its draft regulations for coal-fired power plants in early September. (See article elsewhere in this issue of IPPSO FACTO.)
However, Maxim Power explicitly asked for, and obtained, an accelerated approval from Alberta’s utilities regulator in order to ensure that its proposed plant could avoid being subject to the regulations. In documents filed with the Alberta Utilities Commission, Maxim’s lawyers explained that they met with Environment Minister Peter Kent to understand how their plant could be accommodated by the federal regulatory proposal.