A Toronto-based power generator says it looked at Saskatchewan's growth and figured the province would need more power. That path is bringing the company to a site just east of the Battlefords.
Starting in 2013 and for 20 years, SaskPower will buy more than 260 megawatts of baseload electricity from Northland Power. Northland expects to begin construction this July on a Battlefords-area natural gas-fired plant with a total budget of $700 million.
"Cost is fairly attractive," said Guy Bruce with SaskPower, "and natural gas plants are quicker to build and relatively lower capital cost compared to some other alternatives." Bruce added a natural gas plant produces about half as much carbon dioxide as a coal-fired plant.
Boris Balan with Northland Power says the company looked to Saskatchewan as a customer due to its growing economy and expected increase in demand.
"Saskatchewan is a major economy right now in Canada," he said. "It's growing very quickly and there's a real need for power generation in general." The company is already developing a smaller, natural gas-fired peaking power plant north of Moosomin, in southeastern Saskatchewan.
Balan says the location was determined based on factors like a natural gas source, connecting to the power lines, and being fairly remote. Using the river as a water source turned out not to be feasible, but Balan says that's worked out as well.
"We have an agreement in place with the City of North Battleford to use some excess water from their wastewater treatment plant," Balan said. "Basically their wastewater, we'll be able to clean it up and use it for our cooling purposes."
Balan says the enviromental approval process is underway.
About 25 permanent jobs and two hundred construction jobs will be created.