Big boost for Quebec wind industry

There's water, water everywhere in Quebec, and now there's going to be plenty of wind, as well.

Hydro-Quebec, the provincial government-owned utility, has announced that it accepted 15 bids for a total of 2,004 megawatts of wind power projects to come on stream between 2011 and 2015.

The utility said it would spend $5.5 billion on the wind farms, including $1.1 billion for transmission infrastructure.

Quebec, which gets most of its electricity from hydro, will not only be raising its wind generating profile with the new projects, but the province's wind industry as well.

"Sixty percent of the total cost of each wind farm must be incurred in Quebec," Josée Morin, spokeswoman for Hydro-Quebec, told the Cleantech Group.

"And at least 30 percent of the cost of the wind turbines must be incurred in the region of Quebec."

"Also, it was a call for tender open only for Quebec. So the wind power that we are buying, all the installation must be in Quebec."

That means the companies involved in the process need to set up factories for manufacturing and assembly in the province, if they don't already have a presence there, instead of just shipping in the turbines and doing an installation.

The 15 wind farms will be constructed by eight different groups, with the largest chunk going to a consortium of France's EDF Energies Nouvelles, Quebec's Hydromega Services, and Renewable Energy Systems Canada, also based in Quebec.

Hydro-Quebec said the average price offered by the winning bids is 10.5 Canadian cents per kilowatt hour.

The government's requirement that the bidders invest locally follows a similar move by the province in a 2003 tender process.

Hydro-Quebec already has 422.5 MW of wind in operation. Another 1,005 MW is currently under construction, with most of it sourced from that 2003 tender.

By 2015, the province expects to be producing 10 percent of its power from wind energy. But that isn't likely to rival Quebec's hydro resources anytime soon.

"It's more than 95 percent," said Morin.

Most of the newly planned wind farms are sited near the St. Lawrence River, with two set to go up south of Montreal, and the rest up along both sides of the river heading northeast.

Take a look at a map of the new wind projects here >>

The EDF Energies Nouvelles, Hydromega, and Renewable Energy Systems Canada group is operating as the St-Laurent Energies consortium and will be building five of the wind projects, representing almost half of the total new capacity at 954 MW.

EDF Energies Nouvelles is 50 percent controlled by state-owned Electricite de France. Renewable Energy Systems Canada is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the U.K.'s Sir Robert McAlpine construction group.

The St-Laurent Energies consortium will be getting its turbines from Germany's REpower Sytems.

The consortium's five wind farms represent a total investment in excess of $2 billion, with more than $1.2 billion to be spent in Quebec, including the manufacture of blades, towers and power converters in the region.

"It continues what the government achieved before with the first call for tender," said Morin.

There's already a growing wind industry in the area, and Morin said the government decided to continue to ensure that a certain amount of investment on the new projects should be incurred there.

Another consortium was formed by Boralex and Gaz Metro, both based in Quebec, which will be putting up two wind power projects totaling 272 MW, using turbines from Germany's Enercon.

Enercon is providing turbines for all of the remaining groups in the tender, and said it plans to establish its Canadian headquarters in the Montreal area, investing more than $30 million in Quebec, including manufacturing facilities in the city of Matane.

With plans for concrete tower production and the assembly of electrical components, Enercon said it expects to create 200 jobs in preparation for the first phase of project construction, scheduled to begin in 2011.

Other winning bidders for the wind projects include Kruger Energie, a unit of Kruger, a Montreal wood products company; Invenergy Wind Canada, part of Chicago renewable energy firm Invenergy; and Enerfin Sociedad de Energia, a unit of Spain's Elecnor group, which builds electricity, water and gas distribution facilities.

Hydro-Quebec said it plans to draw up contracts with the project partners within the next few months.