SUMMERSIDE WIND PLANT

North American Leaders

The Summerside Wind Plant, owned and operated by the city of Summerside, Prince Edward Island, is Canada’s first community owned wind plant. This 12 MW project consisted of 4 x 3 MW Vestas turbines. As the Project Management and Construction Management firm for this project, Frontier was involved in all aspects of this project, from road construction to turbine commissioning.

Before the Summerside Wind Project was built, this small city of 15,000 people was getting much of their electricity from diesel generation. Prince Edward Island has long been rich in wind resources and the city decided to build their own 12 MW wind farm, which started generating electricity in 2011.

Even after commissioning, this project continued to grow. Summerside often has excess wind production, which it decided to bank for future use. The city has coordinated the installation of water heaters and furnaces in local homes and businesses that are able to store energy as heat, allowing the city to harness some of the excess wind energy produced.

In May of 2020, nine years after commissioning, the wind farm continues to generate more than a third of the city’s required energy.

Summerside has become a North American leader at integrating wind power using smart grid and energy storage technologies