RenuWell Energy Solutions has taken second place in the 2025 Clean50 Top Projects for its innovative project to turn abandoned oil well sites into solar energy powerhouses.
The award recognizes 25 sustainability leaders across the country.
At last count, more than 170,000 abandoned oil and gas wells, each occupying between two and four acres of land, were in Alberta.
Many of these sites are on farmland left too toxic for growing crops. Recently, RenuWell partnered with the Municipal District of Taber to repurpose two abandoned wells into solar energy farms that, together, can power 500 homes.
“So at the minimum, there’s at least 340,000 acres of land throughout the province that can’t be used for any other purpose because they’re under abandoned oil and gas infrastructure,’ said Keith Hirsche, president of RenuWell, in an interview with Global News.
The cost of reclaiming all abandoned wells in Alberta is estimated at a whopping $33 billion or more.
Municipalities across Alberta are owed $245 million in overdue property taxes left unpaid by rogue oil companies that abandoned their cleanup responsibilities.
A Green Solution to a Dirty Problem
Hirsche, RenuWell’s founder, knows both sides of this story well. His father worked in oil and gas, and his family still has a small farm near Taber.
His company offers a simple but genius solution to a dirty problem. Oil companies save some money on reclamation costs. Renewable energy companies or cooperatives enter into new lease agreements with landowners to generate green power while repurposing some of the remaining oil and gas infrastructure.
At the same time, landowners get royalties, and municipalities collect some welcome property tax revenue.
Decentralized Energy Canada calls it “a win-win for landowners, municipalities and energy transition.”
The Renewable Pause
This unique solar solution is a small bright spot in a renewable energy sector that hasn’t had much to cheer about in Alberta.
In 2023, the provincial government paused renewables and imposed a seven-month moratorium on new wind and solar projects.
According to a study by the Pembina Institute, the moratorium deep-sixed 53 proposed renewable energy projects capable of generating 8,600 MW. That would have been enough to keep the lights on and appliances running in every Alberta home.
Premier Danielle Smith’s government said the moratorium was about preserving farmland and tourism, with a ban on solar and wind projects within 35 km of pristine viewscapes and a total ban where soils are fertile.
Now, her party is considering further restrictions that would ban such projects on native grasslands and irrigated lands.
According to Alberta Wilderness Association conservationist Ruiping Luo, if these new restrictions are implemented, 40 percent of Alberta would be off-limits to renewables.
What About the Oil and Gas Sector?
For critics like Luo, it’s less about the restrictions and more about how they’re being applied.
“It seems very clear that this is not about environmental protection,” Luo told Canadian Press.
Luo supports protecting grasslands, parks, protected areas, and irrigated lands from energy development but questions why renewables are being singled out while fossil fuel companies continue to operate as usual without the same restrictions.
Jason Wang, senior electricity analyst with the Pembina Institute, agrees.
“It feels very elementary to say, but these sectors aren’t being treated in the same way,” Wang said.
The good news is that ideas like RenuWell will help the evergrowing problem of abandoned and orphaned oil and gas infrastructure across the province, breathing new green energy into otherwise unusable land left behind by delinquent oil companies.
