The Nunavut Power Corporation has received bids from five companies interested in developing wind projects in the Canadian Arctic territory. The government utility, which serves 11,000 customers living in 25 communities scattered across two million square kilometres of land extending north and west of Hudson's Bay to the North Pole, issued a request for proposals to 33 potential bidders earlier this year (Windpower Monthly, April 2003).
"There are four proposals that are actually quite reasonable," says Robert Patrick, Nunavut Power's director of engineering. "We're just narrowing them down to the top two." The utility will invite those developers to the territory for further discussions and could be ready to make a final selection this month, he says.
Nunavut Power has not put any restrictions on project size or the quantity of power it will buy, giving developers the flexibility to design systems that take advantage of economies of scale. The utility and its customers are looking to wind as a way to lessen their reliance on polluting diesel generation. Right now, 85 diesel generators supply the territory's electricity and burn more than 35 million litres of fuel a year.
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