2016 was a memorable year to most organizations in the province. One of the many that made an impact in the Southeast is the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Plant near Boundary Dam. 

"If we look at December's statistic alone, the facility was online for over 76% of the time and over 58,000 tonnes of CO2 was captured, which contributed to 792,533 tonnes captured in 2016," expressed Howard Matthews, Vice President of Power Production for SaskPower. 

Boundary Dam Station #3, which houses the CCS Plant, has been the topic of discussion since its opening in 2014, but even more so in 2016. The project became a bargaining chip that helped the Saskatchewan Party reach an equivalency deal with the federal government, keeping the province's coal-fired power plants awake past the 2030 deadline. It was also a part of why the Carbon Tax Fiasco was heavily criticized throughout the country. 

"We've set our targets for the CCS plant in 2016." - Howard Matthews, Vice President of Power Production for SaskPower.

"We hit our 800,000 tonnes target at the end of October and we were online for 12 consecutive months. The project was on the verge of repeating the previous goal in 2016 by the end of December, but we clocked in at 792,533 tonnes; just shy of our goal."

Matthews did admit that the team had to deal with some issues during the frigid December, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. 

"In any of our power plants, there are huge complicated affairs to operate these things. In the CCS facility, we had to go offline to do some cleaning and taking care of some electrical issues. For that, the plant was down for a couple of days."

Even when facing criticism, Matthews wants to assure the public that the  importance of the project is to see if we can keep coal in the mix, while meeting environmental regulations surrounding climate change and global warming. 

"Coal offers some aspects to all of our customers. It is very stable in terms of pricing moving forward and it removes the volatility in pricing as well. The challenge ahead is whether we can do this in an environmentally sustainable way and in a cost-effective manner," he concluded.