The SaskPower Shand Power Station, pictured in 2008, is one of three coal-fired power stations that produce about 30% of Saskatchewan’s electricity.Troy Fleece/The Canadian Press
The Saskatchewan government is extending the life of its coal-fired power plants, saying Ottawa does not have jurisdiction over electricity generation in the province.
Saskatchewan’s demand for power is facing unprecedented demand growth, SaskPower Minister Jeremy Harrison said in an internal letter to employees, which means the province must take an “all-of-the-above approach” to electricity generation by using every means at its disposal.
That includes coal, as the province intends to use the fossil fuel until it can bridge to nuclear power through small modular reactors or large-scale nuclear generation, Mr. Harrison said in the Wednesday morning memo obtained by The Globe and Mail.
Saskatchewan has Canada’s third-most emissions-intensive electricity system. The province generates 26 per cent of all the country’s electricity emissions, despite only producing 4 per cent of the power, according to the National Inventory Report.
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In 2016, Ottawa gave provinces until 2030 to phase out their coal-fired power plants. Only those fitted with carbon capture and storage technology were exempt, such as Saskatchewan’s Boundary Dam 3 power plant.
But Mr. Harrison said in his letter that the Saskatchewan government believes that Ottawa “has no standing in this discussion,” as power generation falls under provincial jurisdiction in Canada’s Constitution.
Nor does the province recognize the legitimacy of the federal Clean Electricity Regulations, which aim to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from provinces’ electricity grids. The new rules came into effect on Jan. 1.
In 2023, the Saskatchewan government used its autonomy legislation for the first time to review the draft regulations, and found that they would cost the province $7.1-billion in economic growth. The final rules were softened markedly from Ottawa’s original proposal.
Federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin did not respond by deadline to The Globe’s request for comment.
Scott MacDougall, director of the electricity program at the Pembina Institute, a think tank, said in an e-mail that Saskatchewan’s apparent focus on constitutionality is unfortunate.
The regulations for both coal and clean electricity fall under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which says the federal government has the right to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, he noted.
“However, this misses the much bigger picture. All over the world, including in some Canadian provinces, governments are rapidly growing their electricity supply in a way that maximizes the lowest cost generation (in most cases, wind and solar) and pairing them with grid modernization efforts that bolster reliability – like battery storage and distributed energy resources that ensure we create and use power in the most efficient way," Mr. MacDougall said.
Mr. Harrison was not made available for an interview Wednesday, but said in an e-mailed statement that Saskatchewan has added hundreds of megawatts of new renewable power generation, natural gas plants and biomass to its grid.
He said prioritizing reliable and affordable power generation, along with energy security, led to the “fundamental reconsideration of the future role of coal in our system.”
About 30 per cent of Saskatchewan’s electricity comes from its three coal-fired power stations: Boundary Dam and Shand, both near the small city of Estevan, 200 kilometres southeast of Regina; and Poplar River Power Station near Coronach, about 200 kilometres west of Estevan.
Those plants are “in remarkably viable condition given their age,” Mr. Harrison said in his letter, noting that over the past eight years, they have been able to run between 78 per cent and 87 per cent of the time on average.
In all, SaskPower intends to extend the life of 1,500 megawatts of coal-fired power, with work on Boundary Dam to get it recertified beginning this year, Mr. Harrison said. The province will also investigate the viability of additional carbon capture and storage technology on the other plants.
Roughly 100 years’ supply of coal is buried beneath the province, much of it close to the power plants in the southeast. Saskatchewan intends to take advantage of its own resources, avoiding imports of natural gas to feed power stations and circumventing price spikes for the fossil fuel, Mr. Harrison said.
“The certainty and security of coal means that it will continue as a pillar of our electrical generation system as we bridge to a nuclear future powered by Saskatchewan uranium.”