For three months from June to August, the Carbon Capture and Storage (CSS) facility at Boundary Dam Power Station was offline and not collecting carbon dioxide as it underwent a shutdown. However, by Sept. 2, the plant was up and running again.
The plant was not in operation in August due to an extension of the previously communicated planned outage at the carbon capture facility, according to a blog post by SaskPower posted on Sept. 12.
The post stated, 鈥淭he extra time was required to complete the installation of new coolers on the CO2 compressor used on site.聽 This involved modifying the existing piping to accommodate the connection of the new coolers to compressor. The CCS CO2 compressor is one of the largest high speed compressors produced by the manufacture; therefore, the process to attach the piping to the compressor requires precise movement and suspension of the piping so that the mechanical stresses transferred to the compressor due to the weight and position of the pipe are minimized as much as possible.聽 This precision necessitated technical assistance from the manufacturer in Germany and the overall process took some time.
鈥淭he restart of the capture plant was completed by the last week of August and delivery of CO2 to our off-taker via the compressor began in early September.
鈥淎fter completing final operational checks, the carbon capture process resumed commercial operations Sept. 2. During September, the process will prepare for reliability testing and full performance,鈥� the post concluded.
Graphics released along with the post indicate that the power generator itself performed much higher during August 2017, while the carbon capture unit was not operational 鈥� much higher, in fact than the rest of the year while the carbon capture plant was working. Unit 3 produced approximately 130 megawatts during August, which is substantially more than its 111 megawatt average for the previous 12 months. June 2017 showed a substantial dip in power production, as maintenance took place on the power unit.
The prolonged shutdown also had a negative impact on the 12 month daily average of tonnes of CO2 captured. That average is now 1,454 tonnes, as the last three months had a zero registered. However, that number can be taken as something of a misnomer, as it is well below any month when the plant was operating.
Since the plant has started up, a total of 1,597,400 tonnes of CO2 have been captured. In 2017, the number so far is 264,915, well below the initial plans of one million tonnes per year to be captured, a number that was reduced in later years as the company鈥檚 expectations became more in tune with reality.
