Wind, solar and storage work in remote and northern Canada when ground, cold, logistics, the local grid and the community are designed for from the first site visit.
Most remote renewable projects are not technology experiments. The panels, inverters and batteries are commercially available, and four projects PRI worked on show they run: in the Arctic, Naujaat’s 1.4 MW Ikayuut solar and storage plant and Inuvik’s 689 kW Midnight Sun Complex system; in remote B.C., Solar North’s 2 MW array on Haida Gwaii and Ulkatcho Energy Corporation’s 3.8 MW farm at Anahim Lake. What decides whether a project succeeds sits around the technology. Six questions decide it.
SIX QUESTIONS
• What is below the ground? Far enough north it will be permafrost, and both climate warming and construction disturbance are thawing it. How it changes over a project’s life depends on its ice content, temperature and salinity, so each foundation has to be designed for the permafrost expected at the end of its design life, not the permafrost there today. At Naujaat and Inuvik, both in the Arctic, PRI designed adfreeze and bedrock micropile foundations for the racking and electrical auxiliary structures on that basis, and confirmed both designs with pile load testing.
• What will the cold do? Batteries need thermal management, as do inverters and much of the other electrical and mechanical equipment. Steel, concrete and cabling must be specified for the minimum temperature on site, not the average. Turbines add cold-weather packages and blade de-icing.
• How does it get there? Most remote communities are reached by sealift in summer, by winter road for a few weeks, or by air. Components, cranes and concrete have to arrive in those windows, and a missed window can move a construction year or drive substantial capital overruns. In Inuvik, the Midnight Sun Complex array was commissioned in April 2026 before its battery equipment had been transported to the town. Plan the logistics before procurement, know the cutoff date for each seasonal route, and use local material where it exists: some materials can take up to two years to reach site.
- How much can the local grid take? A small diesel grid can only absorb so much variable power before stability suffers, and storage and controls change that limit. On three of those four projects, the solar was ready before the storage. Solar North began supplying power in December 2025 and, while its battery awaits installation, is displacing around 70 per cent of the diesel it is capable of. “BC Hydro had never done a project where it’s connecting a renewable energy project to a diesel grid before,” said Sean Brennan, a manager at Tll Yahda and a lead on the project. At Anahim Lake, BC Hydro is upgrading the community’s station with a battery energy storage system and a microgrid control system so the grid can take the 3.8 MW solar farm’s output; it schedules completion for early 2027 and targets a 64 per cent cut in diesel use. Size the project to the grid it will join, and schedule the storage with it.
- Who owns it, and what funds it? Ikayuut’s developer is an Inuit-led partnership between Sakku Investments Corporation and Northern Energy Capital. Solar North is owned by Tll Yahda Energy, a partnership of three Haida governments. Anahim Lake is owned outright by Ulkatcho Energy Corporation. Funding stacks several sources: Ikayuut combined four federal programs with $250,000 from the Government of Nunavut, and Anahim Lake drew on the federal-provincial Community Energy Diesel Reduction program and the BC Indigenous Clean Energy Initiative alongside $818,300 from the Ulkatcho First Nation. Revenue comes from a long-term purchase agreement with the utility: Qulliq Energy Corporation in Naujaat, BC Hydro on Haida Gwaii and at Anahim Lake.
- Who is at the table, and when? The projects that move fastest bring the community in before the site is chosen. The Hamlet of Naujaat helped select Ikayuut’s site, already-disturbed land 400 m from homes, and Naujaat residents filled every construction job. Anahim Lake’s solar farm sits on a 30-acre former sawmill site. Tll Yahda hired 16 solar installers on Haida Gwaii. A community that owns the project, chose the site and staffs the work is the strongest case a regulator or funder will see.
None of those questions is answered by the equipment supplier. They are answered by site investigation, a logistics plan, a grid study, a funding strategy and a partnership agreement, assembled before the technology is chosen. Answered in that order, the technology choice is usually the easy part.
Planning a renewable project in a northern or remote community? Contact the PRI Team.