Saskatchewan teaming up wind turbines with rinks

The performance of these wind turbines will be monitored for up to five years to determine if self-generating electricity can help offset the power bills in the selected rinks. The wind turbines are expected to be installed and operational by mid-2011.

Robert Watson, SaskPower president and CEO, says since the wind energy project was announced in December, they have received 138 expressions of interest.

Watson says the information SaskPower gets from the projects will be used to help guide future programming decisions aimed at reducing customer power bills, not only for ice rinks, but for other commercial and industrial operations as well.

Everyone who completes and submits a Municipal Expression of Interest Form will be contacted by SaskPower. Those rinks that meet the Expression of Interest criteria will be provided with a proposal package. The proposal package must be returned to SaskPower by March 4, 2011. The return address will be included in the proposal package.

The selection process to determine which rinks will receive wind turbines will take place in early 2011. Successful applicants will be notified in April 2011.

After the rinks have been selected, SaskPower expects to have the wind turbines operational in summer 2011.

www.saskpower.com/