Sites that remain buildable in Alberta can still be developed economically, but only where ground conditions are investigated before the foundation concept is set rather than after.
On 6 December 2024, Alberta brought the Electric Energy Land Use and Visual Assessment Regulation into force. It prohibits new wind development inside a 70,000 square kilometre buffer around the Rocky Mountains, extending east far enough to take in the western half of Calgary. It requires visual impact assessment before the Alberta Utilities Commission across a further 82,000 square kilometres. It restricts development on Class 1 and 2 agricultural land unless coexistence with crops or livestock can be demonstrated. And from 1 January 2025 it requires reclamation security posted upfront, to the province or to the landowner.
The land removed was not a random sample. Industry analysis at the time noted that the buffer captures where Alberta’s best wind resource sits, which is the same reason existing projects had clustered there. That is the fact that matters for anyone still developing in the province: the constraint is not that less land is available. It is that the land with the best resource and the simplest ground has been taken out first, and what remains trades one for the other.
So developers are evaluating parcels they would have passed over five years ago: marginal agricultural land, terrain closer to the foothills, variable or layered soils, previously disturbed and brownfield ground. On those sites, whether a project pencils out is usually settled before a structural engineer sizes anything.
| The sequencing is the whole argument. A structural-led process starts from the loads and assumes a soil report exists describing something workable. A geotechnical-led process asks first what the ground permits, then lets foundation type, construction sequencing and even array or turbine position on the parcel follow from the answer. On flat greenfield the difference is academic, which is why the industry got used to treating it that way. On what is left in Alberta it frequently decides whether the project exists. Two pieces in this issue follow from that. One on how unconventional sites get assessed. One on FFR+, the new Alberta grid service about to drive a wave of battery siting onto ground chosen for its distance to a substation rather than for anything about the soil. A shelved site is usually a site that was assessed in the wrong order. That is worth knowing before the option lapses, because the parcel does not get easier and the ones still available do not get better. PRI’s geotechnical practice assesses constrained sites for renewable development. Contact the practice to discuss a parcel. |
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