Things are starting to heat up in Saskatchewan, the days continue to get longer and the sun’s rays wash over the Land of the Living Skies with renewed intensity.
With the signs of spring so evident it’s easy to forget that just a few short months ago natural gas was the main source of the province’s warmth, and it takes a lot to make that happen.
But just how much does it take to fuel the province’s heating needs over the winter? SaskEnergy Government and Media Relations Manager, Jodi Woollam, has the answer: 202 petajoules or an average of 1.33 petajoules per day.
For reference, a petajoule (PJ) equals 1,000 terajoules (TJ) or 1,000,000 gigajoules (GJ). To put those numbers into context, 1 GJ is the equivalent of 25.5 cubic metres (m³) of natural gas, of which the average Canadian home uses approximately 2,533m³ or 100 GJ per year.
That amounts to a provincial consumption of 33,915,000m³ per day or 5,151,000,000m³ in a little over 150 days.
Keeping up with the demand during the coldest months of the year is no small task, one that Woolam says SaskEnergy is well prepared for.
“It points to the fact that SaskEnergy is always working on reliability. Our system is 99 per cent reliable, we have that natural gas in our storage caverns and we're ready to go.
It’s so important to us that our customers understand and trust that when they need to turn up that heat, keep their homes and their families warm, that natural gas is ready to flow even during the coldest days of the year.”
Woollam notes that to keep up with the winter demand, SaskEnergy stockpiles the fuel in massive quantities in underground caverns up to a kilometre below the ground. Those caverns have an average capacity of 125,000m³, the equivalent of 50 Olympic sized swimming pools.
The highest levels of natural gas consumption over the winter took place in January and February, with the province using 1.64 PJ/day on January 3, and 1.65 PJ/day on both February 17 and 18.
While that sounds like a lot, it falls short when compared to peak consumption in 2024, which saw 1.7 PJ used on January 12 alone. Woollam notes that although this winter was colder overall, Saskatchewan didn’t break any single day consumption records despite using 14 per cent more natural gas.
Woollam says that Moose Jaw’s contribution to the province’s consumption over the winter amounted to 2.1 PJ (2100 TJ) or just under 1/100th of the total used in Saskatchewan.
As the scale of consumption shrinks, she switches to measuring using terajoules for more accuracy as she outlines our days of peak consumption.
“This year, on January 3rd - this is this is where you see a bit of a trend - on January 3rd, it's 21 terajoules, on February 17th, it's 23 terajoules, and on February 18th it's 24 terajoules,” Woollam explains.
“Then, for comparison, our peak day last year (2024) on January 12, Moose Jaw used 26 terajoules.”
Moose Jaw, much like the province as a whole, didn’t break any consumption records this winter, but our spikes in consumption were rather dramatic on those peak days, nearly doubling the city’s average of just 14.1 TJ/day.
As winter continues to shrink in Saskatchewan’s rear-view mirror, Woollam shares this message as the digging and construction season begins in earnest.
“April has been declared as the Safe Dig month, and so we really want to remind people to get a line locate, it's free. You only need to give three days in advance request for a line locate and it can save so much money, and most importantly, improve safety and save time.
If you’re thinking about a project, or you've got something out in your field you need to do, get a line locate, and double check.”