McCain foods is in the process of a $600 million expansion of their Coaldale, AB potato processing facility. The completed facility will have significant steam demand, currently supplied by natural gas boilers. As an addition to the main expansion project, McCain is implementing an electric boiler to generate a portion of steam for the plant. The project would represent a first-of-kind deployment in Alberta. Furthermore, McCain is developing a $90 million wind farm to supply power to the site. Because of oversizing of the wind farm and distribution constraints, McCain proposes to link the wind farm to the electric boiler in a behind-the-meter fashion with an advanced control system. In times of high wind generation, the electric boiler output will be increased and the natural gas boiler output will be trimmed. Combined with further offset of natural gas demand with onsite biogas, McCain anticipates the initiative will significantly reduce the GHG footprint of the expanded facility.
