A ban on commercial renewable energy projects will continue for another year in The Nation Municipality.
On Monday, February 24, The Nation council adopted a motion extending an Interim Control Bylaw enacted on February 12, 2024 which prohibits the construction of any wind, solar, and battery storage facilities within the municipality for 12 months.
At the February 10 council meeting, councillor Tim Stewart introduced the extension of the prohibition as a notice of motion. When the motion was voted upon by council on February 24, Mayor Francis Brière asked if there were any further comments or questions from council, but no one spoke.
The bylaw prohibiting renewable energy projects in The Nation Municipality resulted from consultations and studies which took place in 2023 and 2024.
The decision to extend the prohibition was made the same week North Glengarry council held a public planning meeting into a Zoning Bylaw Amendment regarding a proposal to build a battery energy storage system (BESS) on land between Skye Road and Highway 417. A BESS installation takes electricity from the power grid, stores it in large batteries, and then feeds it back into the power grid at times of high demand. Skye Road forms the boundary between North Glengarry and The Nation in that area where the facility is proposed. The electricity for the North Glengarry BESS installation would come from Hydro One’s St-Isidore Transformer Station, across Skye Road in The Nation.
Before the prohibition on renewable energy projects in The Nation was first instituted in 2024, Stewart had expressed concern that the installation of the BESS facility could result in an effort to have a wind energy project developed nearby in The Nation because the BESS facility could be used to store any electricity generated by wind turbines.
