In Pincher Creek, Alta., wind is king, roaring down the eastern Rockies, delivering power for generations, so much so the municipal district made a windmill part of its corporate logo.
Not anymore.
District Reeve Rick Lemire said the windmill image, which sits alongside other Alberta icons on the logo — a wild rose, wheat, a pumpjack and cattle will soon be erased.
“It’s not us anymore,” Lemire said in an interview.
There are few places where the wind blows as hard and as often as it does in Pincher Creek, Alta., where clusters of windmills tower over farmland, with mountains in the distance.
But in a few short years, new rules and changing attitudes have delivered a sharp pivot away from wind projects.
The biggest push has come from Premier Danielle Smith’s government, which put a short-term moratorium on renewable energy projects in 2023 before introducing new rules on where they can go.
Three major regulatory changes were announced this month regarding land reclamation bonds, visual impact assessments and agricultural land assessments for renewable energy. Some say the province should do the same for oil companies.
Regulations forbid renewable energy developments within a 35-kilometre buffer zone from the Rocky Mountains, which applies to Pincher Creek, mainly on the grounds of preserving jaw-dropping Prairie viewscapes. The restrictions only apply to renewable energy projects.
Rohit Sandhu, spokesperson for Alberta’s department of affordability and utilities, said exemptions are available for wind projects currently in the buffer zone and the Alberta Utilities Commission can approve new projects on a case-by-case basis.
The commission declined to comment on the matter.
The district has more than 255 turbines producing nearly 511 megawatts of energy, says a third-party report commissioned last year by the town and district.
The issue is also about money.
Lemire said stopping renewable development means lost revenue down the line if companies can’t repower their wind farms once existing ones reach the end of their life.
About 30 per cent of the district’s budget relies on revenues from renewable electricity generation, says analysis by the Pembina Institute think tank, and landowners also collect a percentage of revenue generated by each turbine.
Despite the potential profit lost, Lemire said he believes residents are willing to take the hit.
“We’re starting to slide,” he said of the district’s renewable energy revenues. “We’re coming down — we understand that. Administration knows that.”
Lemire said residents soured on wind projects years before the moratorium took effect, because they found new transmission lines connecting turbines to the grid to be unsightly.
But he said if the aging turbines are allowed to be replaced by fewer yet more efficient models, everyone wins.
Wayne Oliver, an intergeneration supervisor at TransAlta Corp. and a town councillor in Pincher Creek, agreed. Repowered wind farms, he said, would also likely have fewer turbines that produce the same amount of electricity and continue to provide revenues to the district.
While residents aren’t keen on new turbines, Oliver said, they’re on board with an improved status quo.
“The people that live around that Castle River wind farm with 60 turbines, when they hear that six or seven turbines can replace that, they get excited,” he said.
A spokesperson for TransAlta said it’s continuously assessing the future of existing facilities but couldn’t comment on specific sites.
Regulations ‘popped a bubble’
Oliver, a resident of Pincher Creek for over 30 years, said he finds it remarkable how quickly times have changed in a few years.
“It popped a bubble,” Oliver said of the renewable moratorium. “It just shows you the power of government policy to change the direction of society.”
Will Noel, a senior analyst at the Pembina Institute, said what the industry needs is certainty. Noel wrote in a recent report that about 11,000 megawatts of renewable energy projects were cancelled in 2024.
He said modernization and consolidation can work.
“This is a great middle ground,” Noel said. “We’ll get rid of 40 turbines and put up 10 new ones — that’s a quarter of the turbines you have to look at, and you’re getting the same kind of power.”
Lemire said while you never say never on once again going big on wind, the district’s gusty love affair has likely peaked.
“We all agree that windmills are enough. That may change … it can switch,” said Lemire, who is running for re-election this fall.
“[But] we’re gonna go back to where we started: agricultural.”
