Fort Frances solar project proceeds

The developers of a planned solar project near Fort Frances are getting ready for the next phases of the project.

FirstLight Energy is approved for a 57-megawatt project on municipal and private lands located on the town’s northeast side.

Senior Project Manager Alex Moore says there is still permitting and environmental fieldwork that must be completed before any construction can begin.

“There’s a lot of permitting and environmental field work that needs to get done over the next 12 to 18 months,” says Moore.

“We started those in March, and we’ll kind of keep going over the rest of 2026. We’ll be aiming to try and get all of that wrapped up by the end of 2027, and the project will be officially permitted to start construction.”

First Light has teamed up with Lac Des Milles Lac First Nation on the project.

Moore says Couchiching First Nation was approached, but was involved in another solar project that was also granted approval to proceed.

The project has support from the town of Fort Frances.

Moore says it was one of the factors that led to selecting the area as the site for the project.

“We’ve got a strong relationship with the municipality, and we’ve got our fourth fastest generating station project in town,” notes Moore.

“It was kind of the first call we had when we saw the procurement launch was really, what areas are we already established in? Where do we have really good relationships where we can really work on developing a partnership with a local municipality and understand what their needs are and where they’d like to see a project?”

First Light presented its project to the town last year.

Moore says they have made some slight changes to the project since then that will be incorporated into the final design.

The company will be giving the public some further insight into the project this summer.

The public will get a chance to review the project at an open house that will take place sometime this summer.

First Light is also working on the development of a battery storage facility that will store power for later use.

The Independent Electricity System Operator indicates a decision on those projects will be made later this year.