The Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project in Saskatchewan was online 67 percent of the time in May, less than in recent months, but still above the 61 percent 12-month average, operator SaskPower reported Friday in a monthly update. May is only the second month this year during which the plant did not run 100 percent of the time. BD3 was brought down for planned maintenance in May, as it was in February. “The ten-day outage was used to inspect and clean various parts of the unit before bringing it back online,” according to the update.
The plant captured 50,102 metric tons of carbon dioxide in May, bringing the 2016 total to nearly 350,000 metric tons, on track to meet the company’s 2016 goal of capturing 800,000 tons. “Since start-up in October 2014, the facility has captured nearly 890,000 tonnes – the equivalent of removing 222,500 cars from the road,” the company said.
In 2014, the plant captured 115,000 metric tons of CO2 from October, when it was brought online, to the end of the year. In 2015, the facility captured 425,000 metric tons of CO2.
The plant’s CO2 capture rate for May was 50 percent of maximum capacity, falling short of the company’s 65 percent target. The daily average of CO2 captured at Unit 3 peaked at 2,751 metric tons in May.
