The carbon capture and storage project at Boundary Dam Power Station was named Project of the Year in the coal category by Power Engineering and Renewable Energy World Magazines.
The award is given annually to projects that reflect the power industry’s search for cleaner, more efficient sources of power generation and demonstrate new technologies that will help achieve those goals. The project beat out the other finalist, the Columbia Energy Center air quality control retrofit, performed by Black & Veatch.
Mike Monea, SaskPower president of carbon capture and storage initiatives, has been part of the team showing the world what’s happening at Estevan’s Boundary Dam. Shortly after the October launch of the carbon capture plant, SaskPower was the keynote speaker at an International Energy Agency conference in Texas. In December they were one of two companies invited to the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru.
He said the attention the project has received doesn’t necessarily validate the province’s commitment to carbon capture technology, but it feels good to be seen as a world leader by peers.
“It’s nice, now it’s up and running, to very quickly get recognition by some pretty incredible groups,” said Monea in an interview Monday with the Mercury.
When SaskPower presented in Texas, it was the only completed project in the world, so he said they had a lot of attention.
“I wouldn’t say it would change our commitment. The province and SaskPower are committed, and that’s why we spent that money to build the clean-coal project,” said Monea. “That really was to answer the question: Can we keep coal in our fleet? Or do we have to remove coal and move to an alternative energy source, which probably would be natural gas?”
Monea said SaskPower is in the final stages of understanding the true economics of the Boundary Dam project and at the moment, he said the figures are encouraging.
“It takes a while for such a massive plant to get up and running to its optimum efficiency. We’re getting the equipment really tuned up. We have indicators, but it’s going to take us a little while to see how this plant really performs.”
“It’s encouraging to see international praise come from leading publications in this industry,” SaskPower acting President and CEO Mike Marsh said in a press release on Monday.
Since the project launched in October, more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide has been captured from Boundary Dam’s Unit 2 coal-fired generator.
“Coal-fired power remains affordable and Saskatchewan benefits from easy access to centuries of coal reserves. Carbon capture and storage just adds to our diverse mix of power generation options, and it’s making a difference here at home, and around the world,” added Marsh.
Built between 2011 and 2014, and officially launched on Oct. 2, 2014, the Boundary Dam project in represents more than 4.8 million man-hours of work and a $1.4 billion investment. The project joins SaskPower’s natural gas, wind and hydroelectric facilities in a plan to meet the province’s growing power needs.
“We are proud of what we’ve accomplished, with hundreds of specialists and dozens of Saskatchewan companies employed to launch this world-first. This is a responsible investment in sustainable electricity generation, and into the power future of the entire province,” Marsh added.
Now operational, the Boundary Dam facility will capture up to a million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. With the plant running, SaskPower is learning more about what the costs were going in and what they can expect coming back from future projects.
“That’s what the rest of the world wants to see,” said Monea. “Instead of guessing or talking about what it may be, Boundary Dam is the first one that we did build, and it’s putting out data into these economic models. That’s why it’s so popular.”
