The 10th anniversary of the activation of the gas company’s distribution system was marked during a reception at Amherst town hall.
“Amherst was key to us demonstrating our long-term commitment to Nova Scotia and allowed us to demonstrate that we were prepared follow through on our commitments to the community and the province,” Heritage Gas president Chris Smith said. “This was the first large scale project and we did a tremendous job working with local residents and businesses to make it happen. But we also recruited a great team in the local natural gas committee.”
Since then, Heritage Gas has expanded to the Robert Stanfield International Airport near Halifax, Halifax, New Glasgow and Oxford. Smith said there are plans to expand the existing distribution system, and to expand to other areas such as Antigonish and Truro.
“We have used Amherst as an example of how it could work in other communities. We had a united, organized presence here with the mayor’s office, the businesses and the residents. They saw it as an economic advantage.”
Smith said the gas system has grown in Amherst since 2005 with more than 500 customers. Using natural gas has removed 80,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from the environment – which is enough to power 17,000 cars.
“We have approximately 60 kilometres of pipeline in the town and have doubled the size of our network since then,” he said. “Every year we add a little more.”
Amherst Mayor Robert Small, who is also an executive at IMP Aerostructures in the industrial park, said switching to natural gas has saved the company a lot of money.
“In terms of heating our facility in the industrial park it was a significant value. It was a significant challenge to switch to natural gas. It’s difficult to be in business today and the fact we were able to bring our operational costs down makes the decision that much easier,” Small said, adding all of IMP’s operations have made the switch. “We watch the markets closely every week and we can easily switch back to our earlier source of energy. I’m pleased to say we have never converted back to our previous source of energy. Natural gas remains the most competitive solution for us.”
Since then, the town has converted all of its facilties to natural gas and the ice machine at the stadium is also powered by natural gas.
Former mayor Jerry Hallee said bringing natural gas to Amherst was one of the best things his council accomplished. He said the town has four things going for it, including good people, clean water, a consistent wind flow and natural gas.
He said those four things have helped attract business to Amherst, adding Weston Foods and Maritime Pride Eggs were among those who were attracted here because of the water and access to natural gas.
Twitter: @ADNdarrell
