Royal Dutch Shell's North American solar platform Silicon Ranch Corporation along with Shell Canada will build a 58 MW solar farm as a captive power generation facility for Shell's Energy and Chemicals Park Scotford near Edmonton, Alberta.
Renewable energy generated by the facility will cover 20% of the Scotford refinery's energy requirements. It will be built, owned and operated by Silicon Ranch and will supply clean energy to the Scotford refinery for 25 years. It will be one of the 1st large scale solar installations in Alberta's Industrial Heartland, explained Silicon Ranch.
The independent power producer (IPP) plans to break ground on site in 2022, and for the plant to start generating solar energy by Q4/2023.
Along with this solar farm, Shell also has plans to build a large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) on site. Shell Canada has also built a 5 MW solar farm at Scotford that's planned to come online in this fall. Through Scotford Complex, Shell will process new feedstocks as bio-oils or waste oils to significantly reduce the CO2 emissions during production, as the company aims to transition the facility into a fully integrated energy and chemicals park.
"Partnerships like this will enable Scotford to contribute to Shell's overall plan to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, in step with society," said Shell Canada's Senior Vice President, Chemicals and Products, Mark Pattenden.
In August 2021, Shell announced its intention to build Timi Gas Project with Petronas Carigali and Brunei Energy in Malaysia with the unmanned wellhead platform to be powered by solar and wind energy (see Shell's Malaysian Sweet Gas Field Powered by RE).
These efforts are part of Shell group's aim to become net zero company by 2050 even as it continues to invest in oil (see Shell To Invest In Renewables, But More on Oil & Gas).