Glasgow-based renewables consultancy Sgurr Energy is supporting two community wind portfolios through the financing and construction phases in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.
The company’s north American arm is conducting lender’s independent engineer services on the Watts Wind II portfolio, which comprises three sites located in the Nova Scotia communities of New Glasgow (6.4MW), Barrington (3.2MW), and Wedgeport (1.8MW).
The team supported National Bank of Canada, the lender, through a technical due diligence review, bank-grade energy yield and is now completing construction monitoring on all three sites.
The team at Sgurr Energy – a Wood Group subsidiary business – has also been acting as lender’s engineer for the 22MW Scotian WEB Phase II wind portfolio, on behalf of the project’s financial advisor. Having advised the lender through the financing of the portfolio, Sgurr Energy is now monitoring construction progress of the five sites and will provide completion services to the lender in early 2015, when the portfolio is expected to commence commercial operation.
Ian McDonald, project manager at Sgurr Energy, said: “These projects are excellent examples of community scale wind farms, which are geographically diverse, being grouped together as portfolios in order to enhance their financial viability.
Both projects are being developed under Nova Scotia’s community feed-in-tariff programme which pays above-market rates for power produced from clean energy sources. The province has committed to 25% renewable electricity by 2015 and 40% renewable electricity by 2020.
Pixie Energy is an incubator and a facilitator of strategic research and project work, focusing on energy regulation, policy and markets at the local and national level. Find out more about Pixie Energy