ATCO’s Jasper Interconnection Project was a complex construction project that connected the Municipality of Jasper to the Alberta electrical grid, removing their dependency on diesel and natural gas from an isolated generating station.
This project demonstrated ATCO’s innovative technology, capacity for large-scale construction projects, and commitment to a clean energy future.
ATCO installed 1 substation, 468 structures, and 44 km of tree wire. The tree wire was adapted to be used at a 69-kV level—the first of its kind in North America—thereby eliminating flashovers and reducing the risk of wildfires.
Working on National Park land, ATCO faced challenges due to sensitive and ever-changing terrain.
To mitigate the danger of trees falling on the line and causing outages, ATCO constructed a prototype to simulate controlled tree impacts to validate the integrity of the line design and its ability to withstand these occurrences.
Throughout construction, ATCO remained respectful of wildlife zones and historical and Indigenous artifacts. The impact to the land was made minimal by routing over existing utilities wherever possible, thereby reducing line rights-of-way by 45%. Running parallel to a major pipeline corridor for much of the line route also required collaboration with local businesses. Working together with the municipality was key to prevent damage during construction. Potential damage was also mitigated by using ATCO’s compact line design, tree wire conductor, and reinforcing poles and insulators.
As a result of this project and the decommissioning of the diesel and natural gas power plant, 40,077 tonnes of CO2 emissions were removed from the atmosphere.
The environmental impacts were even further reduced by negating the need to transport and store large volumes of diesel. The Jasper Interconnection Project provided customers in the area with the option to purchase electricity from clean, renewable energy sources.
The tree wire was adapted to be used at a 69-kV level—the first of its kind in North America—thereby eliminating flashovers and reducing the risk of wildfires.
