$60 million power plant opens at Spy Hill
October 3, 2012, 4:44 am
Kevin Weedmark
If you drive down a few gravel roads north of the Qu'Appelle Valley around the Tantallon-Spy Hill area, you might find something unexpected nestled among the farms and ranches-a power plant.
Northland Power has built a new 86 MW gas-fired power plant between Spy Hill and Tantallon.
The new plant, built at a cost of $60 million, is a natural-gas-fired peaking facility consisting of two GE turbines.
The power plant is fired up when demand peaks and SaskPower needs the additional power.
Northland Power owns the plant, and has a 25-year power purchase agreement with SaskPower.
"I'm always amazed by the physical reality of the kind of projects that we put together and build and create," Northland Power CEO John Brace said at the official opening of the plant Wednesday.
"I'm constantly reminded of the borderlessness of the power industry. There are companies from all over the world pursuing opportunities like this, and construction companies from all around the world who look at opportunities and chase them, and competition, believe me, is very fierce.
"I'm proud of the fact that we're a Canadian company doing a project in Canada, and we intend to do more. We started to look for opportunities in Saskatchewan in 2008. Spy Hill is the first result of that.
"We're also working on construction of a larger gas-fired facility at North Battleford."
SaskPower had issued a call for proposals for the Spy Hill project in 2008. Northland Power was selected for the project and signed a power purchase agreement with SaskPower in 2009.
Brace said Northland found SaskPower and the provincial government easy to work with. "We have power projects in many jurisdictions and I can confidently say you've got a great thing going on here in Saskatchewan," he said. He said Northland is in the power business for the long term. "At Northland Power we develop, finance, build, own and operate power projects for the long term.
We like to contribute to the communities we're in and we look forward to a long-term future here in Spy Hill."
SaskPower Vice-President Guy Bruce said the Spy Hill generating plant will fill a real need.
"From filling the gaps in times of peak demand, to helping balance the risks associated with renewable power generation, the additional power generated at this facility is crucial to SaskPower's overall electricity supply plan.
"Renewable power like wind is reliant on backup generation. Potential problems like a day with no wind will be mitigated by having more power available at peaking stations just like Spy Hill.
"The facility will also help fill the gap left when a base load facility needs maintenance or needs to be shut down for any reason."
Bruce said SaskPower was looking for additional generating capacity because of increases in peak demand. "This came about as a request for proposals and the reason we issued the request for proposals is because we saw our peak demand for power growing at a fairly rapid rate," he said.
"We see our power demand expected to rise from about 3200 megawatts today to 4200 megawatts in five years' time. By 2022 we expect that to be in the order of 4400 mw. so we're in a period of rapid growth here in Saskatchewan
"While we're adding capacity to our system to keep up with the growth, we're also looking at infrastructure renewal. We've got some aging generating assets and transmission assets that we're also looking at renewing.
"We have a short-term plan that looks at all our requirements in the short term and we're even looking as far as 40 years into the future.
"We have a period of unprecedented capital investment. By 2022 SaskPower will have committed approximately $15 billion on capital projects and modernizing and expanding the infrastructure for generating and delivering infrastructure in Saskatchewan.
"Natural gas will play a major role. In addition to the two Northland Power projects-Spy Hill here and North Battleford energy centre coming online next year-we've also committed to expansion of the Queen Elizabeth Power Station owned by SaskPower in the Saskatoon area. We're looking at doubling the amount of generation produced by wind, and we're also working on the world's first integrated carbon capture project at Boundary Dam power station."
The Spy Hill power station came on line in October, and employs three people.
