SaskPower intends to launch a request for 300 MW of wind-generation capacity within the next two to three weeks, the minister responsible for the government-owned electricity utility said Oct. 10.
The procurement will be the largest for wind energy in the province's history, eclipsing its most-recent call for 200 MW of wind generation almost a year ago, Dustin Duncan said at a conference in Calgary. The province will seek one or several developers for projects to come online between 2023 and 2024. The additional capacity will boost wind generation to 16% of Saskatchewan's total supply from the current level of about 4%.
"The RFP package will go out to companies probably in the next two to three weeks," Duncan said on the sidelines of the Canadian Wind Energy Association conference in Calgary, Alberta. "This would be 300 MW that I think we would be looking to add to the system in that 2023-2024 time frame."
The wind procurement will help SaskPower reach a goal of 50% of wind power by 2030. The province hit a stumbling block toward its renewables goal earlier in 2019 when a so-called carbon tax out imposed by Canada's federal government slammed the brakes on a 366-MW combined-cycle natural gas plant planned for Moose Jaw, near the capital city of Regina. Duncan said the government hit pause on that plant after recalculating operating costs.
"The early analysis is that on the operational side that's going to add between [C]$350 million and [C]$500 million in operation costs in those seven to eight years alone," Duncan said. "We've got to make sure that we can still afford to do that project."
The federal emissions levy, which was imposed on provinces that did not have what the Trudeau government considered an acceptable tax on pollution, will rise to C$50/tonne and possibly more during the early operation of the Moose Jaw plant. Saskatchewan and a number of provinces are fighting the tax in court. Trudeau's Liberal Party is locked in a tight election race with the Conservative Party of Andrew Scheer, who has vowed to repeal the tax. Canadians will vote Oct. 21.
A win by the Conservative Party would "make the business case look more like it did prior to the June 28 regulations being finalized," Duncan said, noting that the province was not consulted on the new rules for gas-fired plants. "That being said, we need to bring on baseload power and natural gas is for us the one that made the most sense. We'll still examine whether or not carbon capture makes sense on one of our coal units in particular around 2030."
SaskPower operates one of the world's largest carbon capture and sequestration facilities that buries emissions from a unit at its Boundary Bay coal-fired plant in the southeastern portion of the province near the border with North Dakota. Duncan said the province wants to integrate more renewables as its coal-fired units reach the end of their working lives.
"I'm still hopeful that despite the additional cost because of the carbon tax we can still go forward with it," Duncan said. "It's an important part for us to integrate renewables to our system. We wouldn't be able to do it to the extent that we are planning to do it without a plant like that."
