Project overview and goal
The goal of this project is to identify the best location for the construction of a solar farm in the province of British Columbia (BC). To accomplish this, we performed a literature review in order to identify the factors that dictate a good location for a solar farm. Within ESRI’s program, ArcGIS Pro, we used those factors to perform a multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) using the relevant data to find suitable locations. Based on the output from the MCE we looked at the most suitable 20% of land, which helped us identify the North-East region as the most suitable, and focused on it for the second part of our analysis. After removing constraints from this study area, we were left with a small proportion of this region as the most suitable for a solar farm.
Introduction to state of energy in BC
In 2018, British Columbia generated 74.2 terawatt hours of electricity. The majority of this power was generated by hydropower power plants which account for 91% of all electric output in the province. The next most abundant power source was biomass, a by-product of the lumber industry in the province, at 5% (Canadian Government, 2020). According to the BC Government’s 2018 report, The CleanBC plan, “We need to use more clean B.C. energy to meet our climate targets. This means reducing fossil-fuel consumption, increasing new biofuel consumption, and shifting to using more clean B.C. electricity” (Horgan, 2018, 12). In this strategic plan, multiple strategies are outlined that together will help meet BC’s climate goals for 2030. However, these policies “…will require an additional 4,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity over and above currently projected demand growth to electrify key segments of our economy” (Horgan, 2018). This substantial increase in demand, will be met by the “…existing and planned projects that harness B.C.’s vast wealth of clean, renewable power” (Horgan, 2018, 12). This includes the Site C Hydro Electric Project which is projected to have a capacity of 1100 megawatts (MW) and an annual production of 5100 gigawatts (GW) (Eliesen, 2017). The project is expected to cover the energy needs of the province until 2035 (Damkjar, 2016). However, the Site C Dam is being constructed on the last currently identified location of major hydro power potential in BC (Damkjar, 2016). This means that in the future the province might not be able to rely on hydro power as it has in the past, necessitating an investment in new renewable energy sources if the province hopes to continue to achieve its high standard of clean energy production. Therefore the question must be asked, could the province of BC utilize more solar energy?
Assessing the viability of a Solar farm
Considering both BC’s clean energy goals and the depleted access to new major hydropower sites, an investment in alternative renewable energy is necessary to ensure that long term energy goals are met. There are a variety of clean energy sources available to BC such as nuclear power, biofuel, wind power, and solar power.
Nuclear power is both a promising option and also a divisive issue (Siemer, 2020). For the time being however, the BC government intends to keep all nuclear power projects out of the province (CLEAN ENERGY ACT, 2010). Biofuel is a great option because it takes advantage of BC’s large lumber industry which creates plenty of waste trees and wood chips which can be used to make fuel and would otherwise be thrown away (Benitez, 2016). However, the problem with biofuel is that its development is limited by the large amount of infrastructure needed and the high transportation cost of getting feedstock from forestry sites to biofuel plants (Yemshanov et al., 2014). Wind power is BC’s third most productive form of electric generation accounting for 4% or total output and currently has 700 MW of total capacity (Canadian Government, 2020). Furthermore, wind power has seen significant drops in unit energy costs year over year in the recent past making wind power very cost effective when compared to hydropower, specifically the construction of the Site C Dam (Clean Energy Association of BC, 2017).
In comparing solar power to other alternatives, it becomes immediately clear that using solar power as a replacement for traditional hydro power projects is untenable in BC because of the massive capacity that is needed. Currently, solar power represents far less than one percent of the electricity generated in BC (Ecosmart, 2014). The largest and only large scale solar farm in the province, Sunmine, has a capacity to generate 1.05 MW and has an annual production of 1,945 MW. It is the only solar project in the province that has a capacity over 1 MW (Ecosmart, 2014). However, the potential for solar power to be part of the solution for meeting future energy needs must not be overlooked. Much like wind power, solar energy has seen a massive decrease in cost, especially in large scale projects (Clean Energy Association of BC, 2017). Moreover, as Denholm (2008) explains, land availability is one of the main constraints of solar power and our spatial analysis indicated BC has an abundance of good solar farm locations.