Proponent Flags Problems with Provincial Process as Ottawa Battery, Solar Projects Win Council Approval

This is a reprint of an article published December 17, 2025 by The Energy Mix, an Ottawa-based community news site and e-digest on climate change, energy, and the shift off carbon (see original post here). It is reprinted here with the permission of the organization. You can read more articles by The Energy Mix, and sign up for their newsletter, by following this link.

Environmental organizations and a local renewable energy co-op are applauding Ottawa City Council’s approval of a controversial and hard-fought battery energy storage project, especially coming after councillors green-lit six solar projects.

“This is Ottawa’s largest-ever battery storage project and it’s a historic step in the right direction toward a cleaner and more reliable grid,” said Mike Marcolongo, associate director at Environmental Defence Canada, in a release applauding the 21-4 vote.

“The Marchurst battery storage project will help the city reduce dependence on expensive fossil fuel generation and ensure Ottawa’s new solar projects can power homes and businesses when demand is highest,” said Marcolongo.

While environmental groups and many residents of West Carleton-March (Ward 5) backed the Marchurst Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project for its ability to support clean energy development and reduce emissions, it received a mixed reaction overall. Some local residents, Ward 5 Councillor Clarke Kelly, and opposition groups like STOP Marchurst BESS fought the project, and a position statement from Kelly claimed without supporting data that the majority of his constituents were against the location for the project.

Opponents raised concerns about the battery’s size, the risks they said it would pose to the nearby community, and what they saw as an inadequate consultation process by the developer, Gatineau, Quebec-based Evolugen. They also maintained that their opposition was site-specific, not against the technology itself.

In their joint statement, Environmental Defence and Community Action for Environmental Sustainability (CAFES) said the Marchurst battery, along with six solar projects approved earlier in the fall, “will reduce the city’s reliance on expensive gas-fired electricity during peak demand and strengthen Ottawa’s ability to meet its climate and energy commitments.”

The solar projects are sited across four Ottawa wards: the Dunrobin Solar Project and the Carp Airport Solar Project in West Carleton-March, the Kanata I and Kanata II projects in Kanata North (Ward 4), and the Dream Industrial Rooftop Solar Projects A and P in Gloucester-Southgate (Ward 10) and Alta Vista (Ward 18).

Kanata North Councillor Cathy Curry told CBC the projects are needed to meet future growth in electricity demand, adding that she expects more renewable energy projects to be approved across the province. Four of the solar projects were submitted as proposals through the Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator’s second long-term procurement (LT2) to expand electricity capacity across the province.

The projects will help Ontario “decarbonize its grid and meet its net-zero goals,” technology consultant John Kirkwood, president of the Ottawa Renewable Energy Cooperative (OREC), told The Mix.

But “while the approval process ultimately succeeded, it highlights the persistent difficulty in community engagement and support for these projects,” he added.

[Disclosure: The Energy Mix Publisher Mitchell Beer is a longtime member of OREC.]

Though the projects all won council approval during the October 8 meeting, some of the solar installations met resistance at the local level—particularly the 150-megawatt Dunrobin Solar Project, which will be developed on roughly 400 acres of privately-owned land zoned as rural countryside.

“Some immediate neighbours of the Dunrobin project were unhappy. Their landscape will change,” CAFES Executive Director Angela Keller-Herzog told The Mix. But “there were also residents of Dunrobin, Carp, and Ottawa residents further away who were supportive about this approval, understanding the projects as clean energy, a desirable technology to be welcomed and enabled.”

Keller-Herzog said most of the other projects were unopposed as far as she was aware, and a seventh one in Richmond, a rural/exurban area in Ottawa’s southwest, will be re-planned to respect “sensitivities” regarding a neighbouring Department of National Defence facility.

Overall, however, “there is broad support in the wider community for solar and renewable energy projects,” she added. “Many people understand that we have choices to make in satisfying our rising energy demands.”

Kirkwood said reactions like the opposition to the projects in Ward 5 are “typical for large-scale energy infrastructure changes.” And while the projects received strong support from climate action and renewable energy groups and many residents, the local opposition underscores “the continuing need for better provincial and municipal policy to guide the appropriate siting of renewables.”

He added that developers need to move beyond minimal regulatory compliance to minimize opposition, and should “seek to offer genuine, equitable community benefits and participation opportunities (such as local ownership models), thereby transforming neighbours into stakeholders.”