Looking out to 2040, the energy mix of all Canadian provinces are expected to change, though the use of carbon capture and storage in fossil fuel energy generation may be limited to Saskatchewan, home to the world’s first commercial-scale post-combustion CCS retrofit to an existing coal-fired power plant, according to an assessment issued Thursday by Canada’s National Energy Board. “In 2014 Boundary Dam 3 became the first commercial-scale coal-fired power plant equipped with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) capacity. Additional coal with CCS capacity is also added later in the projection period,” according to the report, which includes forecasts for all of Canada’s provinces.
Aside from more CCS projects coming onto the grid, the report projects a significant increase in renewable energy generation Saskatchewan. “In the fall of 2015, Saskatchewan announced a target of 50 per cent renewable power by 2030. In the EF 2016 projections, which were completed before this announcement, the share of renewable capacity increases from 25 to 40 per cent over the projection period,” according to the report.
