100 MW cut from PEI energy plan

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND - PEI's main utility has seriously cut back on plans to generate renewable energy on the Island, citing a lack of interest in the market.

Maritime Electric was soliciting proposals earlier this year to generate 130 megawatts of power from renewable sources: 30 MW for use on PEI, and 100 MW for export. In May, it said it was rejecting all of the proposals because they were too costly.

But on reviewing the proposals again, two out of six have been accepted, but only for a combined total of 30 MW of wind power. The export plan has been scrapped.

"As the events unfolded early this year, we saw that because of changing market conditions, economic climate and so on, there wasn't much interest at this particular point in time in that facet of our request," John Gaudet, vice-president of corporate planning, told CBC News.

"There was a great deal of interest in our 30 megawatts for Island use. We had six respondents and we've narrowed those six respondents down to two."

The companies have been notified. The plan still requires regulatory approval from the province.

Gaudet would not name the independent developers but said detailed discussions are now underway. If the projects are given the environmental approval required by the province, construction of the two wind farms should be complete by the end of 2012.

The Progressive Conservative opposition is calling the scaling back of the plan a major setback for the energy plans of Premier Robert Ghiz's government.