Cookville’s 150 MW Solar Plan Still Needs a Buyer for the Electrons

The partnership proposing New Brunswick’s largest solar farm told Tantramar councillors this month that the hard part is not drawing panels on a map — it is finding someone to buy the power.

Cookville Solar is a planned 150-megawatt array on roughly 400 hectares of farmland in Cookville, about 15 kilometres north of Sackville. The project is a partnership between Dublin-based developer BNRG Renewables and the North Shore Mi’kmaq Tribal Council (NSMTC), which holds an option that could become a majority equity stake. The provincial environmental assessment lists the proponent as BD Solar Cookville Ltd.

“Hurdle number one”

“Selling the power is hurdle number one,” project manager Kenny Wheeler told council, according to CBC. “The returns have to meet a threshold that supports our involvement.”

Possible offtakers include NB Power or buyers in neighbouring jurisdictions via the region’s open-access transmission tariff. NB Power chief commercial officer Brad Coady said the utility has met with Cookville and other renewable proponents and is “hopeful that there's a way to make [the project] happen” — but only with a cost-effective business case the Energy and Utilities Board will accept.

That sits against NB Power’s wider renewables call: 400 MW sought in 2025, with 200 MW already awarded to the Brighton Mountain wind project. Cookville remains among the large proposals still in commercial conversations.

Wheeler put local infrastructure cost around $300 million and construction jobs above 250, with a hoped-for construction start late in 2027 and commercial operation around spring 2029 if contracts and permits line up. The project site says interconnection studies found the location acceptable next to an NB Power high-voltage corridor; the July briefing still framed market, not wires, as the first gate. Battery storage is not in the current plan — Wheeler cited wholesale market conditions and storage cost.

Scale, with paperwork still open

If built at 150 MW, Cookville would be the province’s largest solar plant and, by earlier industry comment to CBC, among the biggest in the country. Proponents say it could supply on the order of 12,500 homes. An environmental impact assessment was registered in spring 2026 (GNB project 1669); next design work has to thread protected wetlands while keeping the project financially viable, alongside engagement with Indigenous organizations including Kopit Lodge and Mi’gmawe’l T’plutaqann Inc.

For a tech and infrastructure desk, Cookville is the cleantech version of a familiar New Brunswick pattern: ambitious capacity on paper, Indigenous partnership in the capital stack, and a utility / regulator gate that decides whether the electrons ever leave the fence line.

Sources

• N.B.’s largest solar farm must first find a market for the power it wants to produce — CBC — July 26, 2026; Wheeler and Coady quotes; 150 MW / 400 ha; offtake as first hurdle; cost and job figures; timeline hopes
• Massive solar farm promises 150MW clean energy — CBC — May 8, 2026 background on scale and site
• NSMTC and BNRG announce 150 MW Cookville Solar Project — NSMTC — partnership and equity-option framing
• Cookville Solar project site — project overview and interconnection notes
• GNB environmental registrations — Project 1669, BD Solar Cookville Ltd. — EIA listing
• BNRG Renewables — developer company site (Dublin HQ)