Diverisified Holdings News
Great Northern Hydroponics To Create Environmentally Sensitive Power Plant
Generating Power for People - and their Greenhouse
November 22, 2006 Ruthven, Ontario, Canada – The energy of Soave Enterprises will soon be harnessed – not just the figurative collective force of the company’s employees, but actual electrical power. Soave Hydroponics Company and Great Northern Hydroponics will begin constructing a Tri-generation Energy Facility in late December 2006.
Great Northern’s President Darrin Didychuk, on behalf of Soave Hydroponics Company, recently signed a 20-year power purchase contract with the government of Ontario, Canada to develop, build and generate a 12 mega-watt electrical power facility. The contract is the result of two years of research and project development from Didychuk and the company’s General Manager Guido van het Hof.
Under the 20-year contract, the Canadian government will purchase 11.5 mega-watts of electricity generated by the plant – enough to power 5,000 residential homes in the local area. Creating electricity from natural gas produces substantial amounts of thermal energy, as well as carbon dioxide exhaust emissions. This thermal energy, in the form of hot water, will be supplied to Great Northern Hydroponics to heat the greenhouse.
In addition, the power plant will employ the latest in environmental technology to clean the exhaust emissions and extract carbon dioxide. Because carbon dioxide is a key component of photosynthesis, the new energy facility will also provide the greenhouse with this necessary “fertilizer” for the greenhouse’s tomato crop.
“The project represents the only one of its kind and will be the most technically advanced and environmentally sustainable projects of its kind anywhere in the North America,” explains Didychuk. “We expect construction to be completed by December 2007.”
Great Northern Hydroponics is an affiliate of Soave Enterprises, L.L.C., www.soave.com. Soave Enterprises is a diversified management and investment company founded by Detroit businessman Anthony L. Soave that provides strategic planning, financial and other management resources to its affiliated business ventures in the real estate, automotive retailing, beer distribution, scrap metal, industrial services and transportation industries, among others. Recently, Forbes Magazine ranked Soave Enterprises as the 192nd largest privately held company in the United States.
