Fort Frances will face possibilities for large-scale economic opportunities by developing industrial power assets in town, said Mayor Andrew Hallikas.
Since the closure of the pulp and paper mill in 2014, the town has been searching for opportunities to draw in new industry, promoting itself as a community ready for large development. However, the issue Fort Frances has continuously faced is its lack of readily available electrical infrastructure needed to serve a new industrial business.
A report from Infrastructure and Growth Manager Travis Rob to Fort Frances Town Council reads, “Fort Frances Power Corporation can not undertake the development of an industrial power supply without a committed customer signing a connection agreement, and no customers will sign one without having a readily available industrial power supply.”
“I would say that this report is the single most important report that we’ve had during this term of council,” Hallikas said. “In fact, I would go so far as to say, in several terms of council.”
The town is in a position where it can’t advertise itself to industrial developers, since it is unable to provide power service needs. Fort Frances Power Corporation (FFPC) can’t get approval from the Ontario Energy Board to build the required assets without having commitment from an industrial customer. Someone needs to make the first move, and the town is taking the opportunity to do so.
“It all falls back to the regulation that they have to work within, and the limitations that places upon them,” Rob said, explaining why FFPC can’t build it themselves. “We, as the municipality, have a ton of regulations—I’m not trying to downplay that—but in this space, we are less restricted in in terms of what we can buy and what we can build.”
The overall project is still in preliminary stages, and although Rob says he expects things to pick up quickly once out of early phases, the town and FFPC are working together to find the best solution of how to make things possible.
“Being that we are the sole shareholder of Fort Frances Power Corporation, there’s obviously a mutual benefit to both parties to see this development get built,” he said. “There’s also mutual opportunity in having one, the other or both putting this all together.”
The power asset itself is addition to the FFPC’s substation. Although not a direct duplication of what’s already there, the new infrastructure would be a similar build of transformers dedicated specifically to industrial use, supporting businesses that come this way looking to develop.
“If you talk to a potential developer and try to sell the community, the first question out of their mouth is ‘Do you have land available,’ and yes, we have land, but then the second question is ‘Do you have services available for us,'” Rob said. “Sewer and water, we have the capacity for most things, but then you get to power and no, we can’t power whatever factory and then it calls into question the viability of Fort Frances.
“Yes, there’s Hydro One that might be able to service them, but it’s more challenging. It’s expensive and it’s not the preferable way that people want to move forward. They want to work with a small LDC like Fort Frances Power Corporation. They want to work with a small municipality because it’s just easier than working with these large corporations.”
Council voted unanimously in favour of this project during their regular meeting last Monday, agreeing that it was the next step for development opportunities in Fort Frances.
“Fort Frances is on the cusp of some serious economic development,” Hallikas said. “Economic development we’ve been looking for before the collapse of the mill. So, so this is our chance, and what we have in front of you, the best time to have done this would have been a year or two. The second-best time is right now.”
The town and FFPC are actively continuing to plan this project out with both parties looking at applying for grants to fund the operation. As the project progresses, research and feasibility studies will continue.
More details in the partnership, who is taking on the financial debts and timelines to completion will become available over time.
