SaskPower is celebrating 10 years of carbon capture at the Boundary Dam power station in Estevan.
The Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) facility has captured over 6.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and prevented that from being emitted into the atmosphere.
“SaskPower’s CCS facility has made Boundary Dam Unit 3 the cleanest-burning coal power unit on Earth and has turned Saskatchewan into an international expert for the development of CCS projects in a wide range of industries,” said Jeremy Harrison, Minister Responsible for SaskPower. “By capturing CO2 before it enters the atmosphere, SaskPower’s CCS facility has also saved SaskPower customers over $160 million in carbon taxes since 2019 and enabled new innovations in fields like enhanced oil recovery.”
Back when operations first spooled up in the fall of 2014, Boundary Dam was the first power plant in the world successfully using CCS technology.
Over the decade, the facility has overcome a number of technological, logistical, and other challenges associated with being the first of it's kind.
Over the latest 12-month period between August 2023 and 2024, the CCS system managed to capture over 900,000 tonnes of CO2 and achieved a peak daily capture rate of 3,047 tonnes.
In the same timeframe, Boundary Dam Unit 3 maintained an average emissions intensity of 348 tonnes of CO2 per gigawatt-hour, well below the carbon tax threshold of 549 tonnes.
“Boundary Dam Unit 3 remains an important part of our generating fleet, producing enough lower-carbon baseload power for 110,000 Saskatchewan homes,” said Rupen Pandya, SaskPower President and CEO. “With stable operations achieved, we can focus on maintaining a low emissions intensity in the years to come.”