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The province wants Alberta to be the birthplace of solar farms in Western Canada, with half the government’s electricity needs powered by the sun.

Government facilities have been powered by renewable energy since 2009. Currently, three companies hold contracts to supply that power generated by the wind.

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Two of the contracts constitute 55 per cent of that supply. When they expire at the end of 2018, the government wants to sign up for solar.

The switch will come at the cost of wind farms, but the government said its goal to have 30 per cent of electricity on Alberta’s power grid come from renewables by 2030 will provide opportunities for those farms to expand their businesses.

Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said Thursday her government wants to move to solar to help encourage growth in green technologies and further diversify Alberta’s power grid, so it’s reaching out to solar companies to ask how they would approach a large-scale project to supply power to government and whether it can be done by 2018.