Canada - New ENMAX Wind Farm Largest in Alberta

Today marks the official opening of Alberta’s largest wind energy operation - ENMAX Corporation’s Taber Wind Farm. Developed by ENMAX Green Power Inc., and costing nearly $140 million, the 37 Enercon turbines located southeast of the town of Taber have a total generation output of 80MW – or enough energy to power approximately 32,000 homes. The Government of Canada will contribute about $19 million over ten years towards the production of electricity from the wind farm.

“The official opening of the Taber Wind Farm is a milestone event for ENMAX and for wind energy in the province of Alberta”, noted ENMAX Corporation President and CEO Gary Holden. “It underscores our abiding commitment to supply Albertans with clean, sustainable sources of energy, and further enhances our position as an environmental leader.”

“The Taber Wind Farm is playing a meaningful role in changing Alberta’s energy industry by increasing the supply of renewable energy to the province”, said Bob Mills, Member of Parliament for Red Deer, Alberta on behalf of the Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources. “It’s also a great example of our government and industry working together. These collaborations are important if we want to achieve our goal, which is supplying clean, renewable energy to all Canadians.”

“Projects of this magnitude are never undertaken without support”, Holden continued. “The project might never have made it past the concept stage without the City of Calgary’s commitment to purchasing output over the next 20 years”. The Taber Wind Farm has 100% of its output fully purchased by the City of Calgary.

“We are resolute in our commitment to reduce Calgary’s ecological footprint” added Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier. “Assuring a long-term energy supply from a renewable source like Taber makes good economic sense for Calgarians and good environmental sense for Canadians”.

With the addition of power generated at the Taber Wind Farm, Calgary becomes the only major city in Canada to draw at least three-quarters of its electricity from green power. Its agreement is the largest green-power usage commitment ( 262,500 MWh) of any municipality in North America, which means it’s setting an example for the world.

Demonstrating their close collaboration, Government of Canada, Government of Alberta and City of Calgary officials, as well as industry representatives and officers of ENMAX Corporation, were on hand at the Taber Wind Farm location for official opening celebrations.

ENMAX Corporation and its predecessors have provided Albertans with safe and reliable electricity for 100 years. ENMAX provides electricity, natural gas, renewable energy and value-added services to more than 500,000 residential, commercial and industrial customer accounts in Alberta through its subsidiary companies. ENMAX Energy contracts low-cost reliable electricity from the Keephills and Battle River coal-fired plants and meets peak demand through a long term agreement with the natural gas fired Calgary Energy Centre. Through a subsidiary, it is one of Alberta’s largest investors in renewable energy with 50 per cent ownership of the McBride Lake Wind Farm and 100 per cent ownership of the Taber Wind Farm. ENMAX Energy has the largest green power marketing program of its kind in Canada and in 2006, received the Consumer Champion Award for its ground-breaking EasyMax® program. For more information, visit our website at enmax.com.