The Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project was online 100 percent of the time in April, operator SaskPower reported Monday in a monthly update. April is the third month this year in which the project has met that milestone. Maintenance in February shut the plant down for a few days, and that is expected to occur again for a week in May. “Of the first 121 days of 2016 the CCS system has been up for 112 days, achieving a reliability rate of more than 92 [percent],” according to the update.
The plant captured more than 82,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in April, bringing the total amount of carbon captured in 2016 to nearly 300,000 metric tons. “We remain on track to meet our target of 800,000 tonnes captured in 2016,” the report says.
In 2014, the plant in Saskatchewan 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 increase in the amount of CO2 captured is good news for SaskPower, the provincial crown utility. The company has faced criticism in recent months from the province’s New Democratic Party, which has been cold to the development of CCS. The plant was advertised as a great success in its first year of performance, while in reality it was riddled with costly mechanical issues and was unable to reach full capacity, NDP lawmaker Cathy Sproule has asserted.
Saskatchewan paid at least $17 million (CAD) in repair costs for the plant and lost $7 million (CAD) in 2015 for penalties for failing to capture enough carbon to meet contractual obligations with oil company Cenovus, the CO2 off-taker, according to the NDP.
The company believes it will be able to meet its commitment to Cenovus this year, according to the update.
The plant’s CO2 capture rate for April was 84 percent of maximum capacity, significantly surpassing the company’s 65 percent target. The daily average of CO2 captured at Unit 3 peaked at 2,845 metric tons in April.
