Alberta government proposing additional restrictions on wind and solar energy

The Alberta government is proposing additional restrictions on wind and solar farms that it says are designed with environmental protection in mind.

But conservationists think the new plan is more about limiting renewable energy than protecting the environment.

Last year, the Alberta government imposed a seven-month moratorium on new renewable energy projects, after which Premier Danielle Smith announced her government would be taking an "agriculture first" approach to regulating renewable energy project locations.

That approach includes preventing renewable energy projects from being within 35 kilometres of "pristine viewscapes" and parks and protected areas, and a near total ban where soil conditions are prime for yielding crops.

"We need to ensure that we're not sacrificing our future agricultural yields, or tourism dollars, or breathtaking viewscapes to rush renewables developments," Smith said at the time.

Critics of the sudden moratorium and new renewable energy-only restrictions, such as Alberta Wildnerness Association conservationist Ruiping Luo, have said that the United Conservative government is being heavy-handed.

"It seems very clear that this is not about environmental protection," said Luo.

Back in February Smith also said the government was planning to go beyond viewscapes and cropland and would consider imposing further restrictions related to Alberta's native grassland areas and irrigated and irrigable land.

A first look at what those grassland and irrigated land restrictions could be was made available when the government asked some municipalities, industry officials, and landowners for input this summer.

According to a webinar used in that engagement process, Alberta is looking to prohibit wind and solar farms on irrigated land.

Land that could be irrigable could also be prohibited, though an analysis would be done before a decision is made.

That same webinar also shows Alberta is considering prohibiting renewable energy facilities from being erected on most grassland areas.

Luo, in a report last month, calculated that these new potential restrictions, on top of those announced by Smith earlier this year, could rule out almost 40 per cent of the province for renewable energy.

The viewscape buffer zone alone rules out close to 23 per cent of Alberta, Luo calculated.