SaskPower’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility at Boundary Dam Unit 3 capped off a strong 2022 by achieving a milestone of five million tonnes captured since start-up. As of the end of 2022, 5,001,707 tonnes of CO2 have been captured and prevented from entering the atmosphere. Total capture for the 2022 calendar year was 749,035 tonnes, and CCS is on track to achieve an 800,000-tonne target for fiscal 2022-23.

During the fourth quarter of 2022 (October 1 – December 31), the CCS facility was available 78.9% of the time, capturing 192,703 tonnes of CO2. A two-week planned maintenance outage in Q4 allowed SaskPower to undertake scheduled work to enable the facility to run smoothly until the next planned outage in May 2023.

While online, the facility had a daily average capture rate of 2,631 tonnes in Q4, with a peak one-day capture of 2,874 tonnes. This resulted in an emissions intensity of 383.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per gigawatt hour, which is within the current federal carbon tax threshold of 549 tonnes CO2/MWh. 

The acid plant at CCS had an extremely strong year: 2022 saw numerous records broken including highest daily acid produced at 52.2 tonnes produced (Nov 12, 2022), the highest monthly acid produced at 702 tonnes (November 2022), the highest quarterly acid produced at 1,470 tonnes in Q3 2022, the highest yearly acid produced at 3,788 tonnes for 2022 and the highest quarterly and yearly availability since start-up at 80.4% and 46.2% respectively. 

For previous BD3 updates or more information on SaskPower’s future, visit saskpower.com/blog.