Solar PV-plus-flow battery project in Alberta underway from oil & gas pipeline company TC Energy

Detail of Windcharger, Alberta’s first wind-paired battery storage project, installed in 2020. Image: Transalta.

Energy infrastructure group TC Energy has begun work on a solar PV power plant in Alberta, Canada, the company’s first solar project.

While the first phase of TC Energy’s Saddlebrook Solar Project will see the installation of a solar system with 81MW of bifacial solar PV modules. In the second, a flow battery supplied by Lockheed Martin will be added to it, with 6.5MW output and 40MWh capacity, enabling the solar stored to be dispatched to the grid at peak times.

TC Energy is known mostly for natural gas and oil pipeline energy infrastructure development but has contracted for 400MW of renewable energy through power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed over the past two years.

It is also, like many legacy energy companies, considering entering the hydrogen business, exploring plans to build a 60 tonne-a-day hydrogen hub at one of its natural gas storage facilities.

The company said it will invest CA$146 million (US$106.4 million) to build the Saddlebrook plant, located near the small Alberta town of Aldersyde at an industrial park.

All regulatory approvals and permits for the project have been cleared and TC Energy has scheduled for construction to be completed during next year.

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