The shutdown at the carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Power Station is virtually complete.
The CCS facility went offline in late May, and remained shut down through June. Unit 3 at Boundary Dam resumed power production on July 7, while the carbon capture island was slated to come back online on Wednesday or Thursday.
Howard Matthews, the vice-president of power production at SaskPower, said this was a regularly-scheduled boiler outage.
“We have to shut our boilers off every so often to do regularly-scheduled maintenance on the boilers, not only because they receive quite a bit of wear, but also by law we have to do certain inspections on these every so often,” said Matthews.
Since Unit 3 came back online, Matthews said the facility has been operating well.
Boilers need to be shut down about every two years, he said.
When Unit 3 is shut down, the carbon capture plant comes offline, too, so SaskPower wanted to tackle some regular maintenance and some planned improvements to the system.
“This is all geared around improving our reliability at doing the best job we can at running the facility,” said Matthews.
Some areas of the capture island had limitations because there wasn’t a backup piece of equipment, he said. If regular cleaning was needed on the heat exchangers, for example, and they don’t have a spare, then the facility had to be to shut the facility down for cleaning.
Since the CCS facility opened, they have learned where they need backup equipment.
“We expect when we come out of this, as we start the unit up here, is we will see even longer run times from what we’ve experienced last while,” said Matthews.
The CCS facility performed well last year, he said as it hit the 800,000-tonne target for the amount of carbon dioxide to be captured.
“This year, and going forward, our goal is even improved reliability and lower cost of operation,” said Matthews. “We expect that as we come out of this with some of this new and redundant equipment, and safe ways to isolate things without shutting the plant down, we’ll see even longer run times and even higher performance in the facility than we have in the past.”
SaskPower was in the process of starting the carbon capture island this week, and Matthews said on Tuesday afternoon that they hoped it would be online within 24 to 48 hours.
“We had quite a bit of work to accomplish, and it was also important not only that we get this work done, but we do it correctly and do it safely as well,” said Matthews. “We’re dealing with large pieces of equipment and a lot of chemicals, so it’s important we do the job correctly and do it safely.”
Matthews noted the sulphuric acid (SO2) plant is also operational. SaskPower wants to sell the SO2 to the market, creating another revenue stream from the CCS facility.
While the market for SO2 is “pretty decent,” he said, and they have a company lined up to purchase the acid, Matthews doesn’t know how long it will be before it can be sold to the marketplace.
“It’s a bit hard to predict. The concentration has to be at a certain level, and it just takes time for that tank to be conditioned,” said Matthews.
No further shutdowns are planned for Unit 3 or the CCS this year. Units 4 and 5 at Boundary Dam are scheduled for shutdowns this fall.
