Boundary Dam

Template:Infobox power station Boundary Dam refers to the CCS project located at the Boundary Dam Power Station in Saskatchewan, Canada. The Boundary Dam Power Station is a coal fired power plant, generating power from the combustion of coal. Unit 3 specifically has had a CO₂ capture unit retrofitted to address emissions. The facility is owned by SaskPower.

History

The Boundary Dam Power Station is a coal-fired power plant commissioned between 1959 and 1978, consisting of six units fired on locally mined lignite. Unit 3 entered service in 1970. In the mid-2000s SaskPower began assessing options to comply with new Canadian federal regulations that required refurbished coal units to produce power at less than 549 tonnes of CO₂ per GWh or be subject to carbon taxes.

In 2008, the Government of Saskatchewan announced a major reconstruction and repowering of Unit 3 as a flagship CCS demonstration, supported by federal funding of C$240million from the Government of Canada.

Construction of the capture plant and repowering of Unit 3 began in 2011. The project reached mechanical completion in 2014 and was officially commissioned on 2 October 2014, becoming the first operating commercial-scale CCS project on a coal-fired power plant worldwide.

In 2016 SaskPower and BHP Billiton established the International CCS Knowledge Centre in Regina to capture and share lessons from BD3 and to support future large-scale CCS projects with expert technical knowledge.

CCS Project

Storage

Main Article: Weyburn Field & Midale Field, Aquistore

The CO₂ from Boundary Dam Unit 3 is primarily stored in the Weyburn and Midale fields through Enhanced Oil Recovery, with a portion stored in the Aquistore research facility.

Technology

The plant uses the Shell CANSOLV absorption technology to extract CO₂ from the flue gas of Unit 3. The capture system treats the entirety of the flue gas stream.

Costs

SaskPower have reported that the

Estimates for capital expenditure related to the new compression equipment, transport, and injection systems range from XXX to XXX

Performance

The plant has a rated capacity of

In a 2025 webinar, a SaskPower representative indicated that the plant was intentionally running at 80% capacity, with the reason given that...

Future Plans

The Boundary Dam Unit 3 CCS project was originally envisaged as a potential first step towards broader deployment of CCS across SaskPower’s coal fleet, including possible retrofits at Boundary Dam Units 4 and 5 and at other coal plants in Saskatchewan. However, in 2018 SaskPower announced that it would not pursue CCS retrofits on Units 4 and 5, citing the age and relatively small size of the units and the availability of alternative low-emission generation options.

Long-term operation of Unit 3 with CCS will depend on economic factors (including CO₂ sales and any future carbon pricing), regulatory requirements, and the remaining life of Unit 3 itself, which is subject to Canadian coal regulations and any granted equivalency agreements.