Regina Construction IV

[gecho111]

Application to turn burned out Gordon Block property into a temporary event space.
https://www.regina.ca/export/sites/R...all-Street.pdf

[one_brick_at_a_time]

[Stormer]

Originally Posted by gecho111

Application to turn burned out Gordon Block property into a temporary event space.
https://www.regina.ca/export/sites/R...all-Street.pdf

Well this is super exciting for downtown. Finally someone is putting vacant land to a good use other than parking.

[one_brick_at_a_time]

Originally Posted by Stormer

Well this is super exciting for downtown. Finally someone is putting vacant land to a good use other than parking.

If designed well, a great use of the space until the tower is built.

[BrannyMuffin]

If anyone is interested, Strong Towns is having a meeting on July 23. They don’t seem great at advertising (social media and website not updated), but they do send things to their mailing list occasionally. Not sure if they’ll advertise this anywhere else so I thought I’d share here.

Hello Strong Towns Regina,

We would like to invite you to a Strong Towns Regina local conversation catch-up on July 23rd. The meeting will be held at the Central Library Community Commons room, from 6:30 to 7:30 pm.

Interest in Strong Towns Regina has been growing over the past year. We are eager to start getting folks together and makes things happen. The best way to kick-start this effort is by having an opportunity to come together. Starting with a local conversation catch-up.

We have a lot to talk about. This past year has been significant for Regina. We've seen developments such as the Cathedral community safety zone project, the housing accelerator fund, recent changes in bylaws to allow more housing density, and pedestrian plans for the Dewdney strip.

We look forward to meeting you all on July 23rd.

Best regards,
Anthony Woodward
Kelsey Longmore

[cityboy]

Originally Posted by BrannyMuffin

If anyone is interested, Strong Towns is having a meeting on July 23. They don’t seem great at advertising (social media and website not updated), but they do send things to their mailing list occasionally. Not sure if they’ll advertise this anywhere else so I thought I’d share here.

Thanks for this! That is so weird, I literally just discovered that this existed as I came across their instagram account. I'll hopefully have time to attend.

[gecho111]

Urgent Care facility opening on July 2. Won't operate 24/7 until the fall. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saska...249206?cmp=rss

[Stormer]

Originally Posted by gecho111

Urgent Care facility opening on July 2. Won't operate 24/7 until the fall. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saska...249206?cmp=rss

I would not be surprised if they have such summer hours every summer. adequate staffing in health care never happens in summers in recent years.

[The mayor]

https://www.ckom.com/2024/06/27/new-...ina-next-year/
New Breast Health Centre opening in Regina next year
Saskatoon / 650 CKOM

[The mayor]

https://www.cjme.com/2024/07/04/spec...y-9-in-regina/
Special meeting of city council called for July 9 in Regina
Regina / 980 CJME
According to the city, those items include:

Debt capacity and financing of unfunded capital projects;
The central library renewal project debt financing report (including the related tabled delegations and communications);
The Saskatchewan Drive corridor plan (including the related tabled delegations and communications);
Development charges policy and model review;
Potential allocation investment income to reserves;
Capital project and reserve funding; and
Quarterly financial statements preparation

[The mayor]

SaskPower opens first battery energy storage facility outside Regina
https://regina.ctvnews.ca/saskpower-...gina-1.6951450
The $34 million SaskPower facility has the storage equivalent of 5.7 million AA batteries. These are much larger and housed in a dozen sea can sized containers.

[Stormer]

Originally Posted by The mayor

SaskPower opens first battery energy storage facility outside Regina
https://regina.ctvnews.ca/saskpower-...gina-1.6951450
The $34 million SaskPower facility has the storage equivalent of 5.7 million AA batteries. These are much larger and housed in a dozen sea can sized containers.

For those who keep saying telling us that batteries are the solution to the renewable energy intermittency, just look at the metrics of this project. I don't think we are close yet. Assuming the batteries are drawn down and charged twice each day and the batteries last 10 years, the extra cost of the electricity released from the batteries would be over 23 cents per KWH. This of course does not include the actual cost of generating the electricity and does not include any operating costs, which should be fairly low.

I do not know if my assumptions are correct, but this seems like more a demonstration project than a real business model.

https://regina.ctvnews.ca/saskpower-...gina-1.6951450

[gecho111]

Originally Posted by Stormer

For those who keep saying telling us that batteries are the solution to the renewable energy intermittency, just look at the metrics of this project. I don't think we are close yet. Assuming the batteries are drawn down and charged twice each day and the batteries last 10 years, the extra cost of the electricity released from the batteries would be over 23 cents per KWH. This of course does not include the actual cost of generating the electricity and does not include any operating costs, which should be fairly low.

I do not know if my assumptions are correct, but this seems like more a demonstration project than a real business model.

https://regina.ctvnews.ca/saskpower-...gina-1.6951450

Batteries will be critical as the percentage of renewables increases, and the scale will need to be much much larger, thousands of stacked containers. A big issue with solar in particular is that it generates peak power at non-peak demand times of day. So output needs to be curtailed ie: thrown away. Wind suffers from curtailment as well. When you are at the point of curtailment, the price of power can drop to zero or below.

There also need to be other storage technologies to act as a buffer to maintain grid frequency since inverter based power sources don't have self regulating inertia like a spinning turbine.

[gecho111]

It looks like the last major pieces of the General Hospital Parkade will be installed in the next day or two.

Tender out to upgrade the pathway on the east side of Prince of Wales from Arens Road all the way south to the end. Most of it paved but just south of Truesdale to Arens will be rubber?? A few path connections along the way. 2 into the Sandra Schmirler parking lot, 1 into Prince of Wales Park, another into Schweitzer Park.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Stormer

For those who keep saying telling us that batteries are the solution to the renewable energy intermittency, just look at the metrics of this project. I don't think we are close yet. Assuming the batteries are drawn down and charged twice each day and the batteries last 10 years, the extra cost of the electricity released from the batteries would be over 23 cents per KWH. This of course does not include the actual cost of generating the electricity and does not include any operating costs, which should be fairly low.

I do not know if my assumptions are correct, but this seems like more a demonstration project than a real business model.

https://regina.ctvnews.ca/saskpower-...gina-1.6951450

Your looking at it from the perspective that this is a regular source of power. This is something that should rarely be used when other lower cost sources or power are not available.

For example, any grid has a number of peeking stations that most of the time are off and only come online when other sources are not available. Obviously the per-kwh cost of a power station that rarely ever runs is going to be much higher than one that is always running at full capacity.

I would suspect SaskPower would charge these batteries when they have a surplus from their base load + renewables. They would draw from the batteries when they are short and the cost of bringing power in from neighboring grids is high.

When the batteries start to run low they would power up a peeking station. For example, Aspen Power 370 MW station they are building near Lanigan is such a station. You would expect it most of the time to be off.

Here in BC, we have the same thing with Hydro electric. There are a couple of smaller older hydro electric stations in the province that will run a few hours a day during peek load. Most of the time there is no flow through them.

[Festivus]

Additionally, the cost of batteries has halved in the last five years, and there is no reason not to expect that trend to continue. Much like how solar was not worth the money back in the 90s, but is now the cheapest form of energy production (even in Canada) due to increased research and development. Obviously the downside of solar is that it only produces for 1/3-1/2 of the day, here.

[gecho111]

I went out by Sask Poly to see if ground has been broken for the long term care facility yet, but its still just canola haven't even started extending the utility services yet.

[The mayor]

Year-over-year, Regina saw the total number of jobs rise by 5,000 in June, an increase of 3.4 per cent, while Saskatoon’s employment rose by 5,400 jobs, an increase of 2.7 per cent, the province said.
https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatch...loyment-report

[Kegger]

Looks like significant construction is ongoing at the Sherwood Coop Quance Street grocery store. I believe there was indication that they would be building a liquor store at that location after getting a liquor licence.

They were doing some significant trenching from Quance street that appears to be done, likely the utilities for the building. So the store looks like it will be built directly east of the grocery store where there was an under-used parking lot previously.

[gecho111]

Armour Road got an asphalt treatment from the bypass to about half a km short of the Sherwood Forest turn off. Its effectively a paved road for now, but I'm not sure how long it will hold up. A lot less gravel driving going that way vs taking Dewdney out.