Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list inclu...
Coal-fired power was the talk of the legislative building for the last couple weeks of the spring sitting, as the Opposition NDP unveiled two documents they said had been leaked from SaskPower.
One showed a costing analysis of the plan to refurbish and run the province’s coal-fired power plants for another 25 years, pegged it at a total of $26 billion. The NDP accused the government of hiding the true cost of the plan.
The second document, released on Wednesday, appeared to show that the plan to run coal plants for another 25 years would raise the average power rates by 20 per cent by 2030 and 95 per cent by 2040. It also pointed to an extreme financial risk of the plan, and said SaskPower would be “terminating previous corporate commitment related to renewable capacity and emissions reductions” because of the coal extension.
Read more:
- Coal workers disappointed with Sask. NDP’s criticism of cost of plant refurbishment
- National Electricity Strategy doesn’t surprise Sask. Premier, offers some approval
- Scientists call for Sask. to reverse decision to extend coal-fired power plants
No one was made available from the government on Wednesday to talk about the new leaked note, but SaskPower President and CEO Rupen Pandya was brought to speak to media on Thursday morning. He said he wanted to give context to the documents that had been released.
According to Pandya, the extreme risk referenced in the second document was talking about risks around federal electricity regulations — the province chose to disregard those regulations in extending the life of coal plants. However, Pandya said that has changed because of the federal government’s new electricity strategy announced that morning.
“(The federal strategy) talks about how do we build sufficient system capacity in Canada to support future economic growth and prosperity? And part of that is to look at existing assets and to ensure that there are no stranded assets,” said Pandya.
Renewable power
When asked about the note appearing to talk about cancelling renewable power projects, Pandya said there’s been no termination of commitments.
“We have procured 700 MW of wind and solar as we are looking to an all-of-the-above approach to meeting power needs in Saskatchewan, and certainly as we look forward we’ll need to think about more,” said Pandya.
He explained that the decision on coal would change the timing of when they’re bringing new generation online. Pandya said Saskatchewan’s grid is about 6,000 MW right now, and SaskPower anticipates it will need to double by 2050.
“That’s why it is absolutely critical that we’re not shutting anything off right now. We will certainly need all of the above and more as we reach out to 2050,” said Pandya.
Rate increases
Premier Scott Moe has said the rate expectations in the second document are wrong, but when asked whether he would refute the numbers, Pandya was a bit less straightforward.
“Based on discussions between the federal and provincial governments — and the premier’s been clear on this, SaskPower’s been clear on this — our expectation is the federal government will come to the table with 75 per cent of funding for the first SMR (small modular reactor) in the province and based on federal contributions then the answer would be no, those (rate increases) won’t be accurate,” explained Pandya.
And, on the first document to be released, Pandya repeated what the government has been saying — that the cost of refurbishing the coal-fired plants is $2.6 billion, and the NDP’s $26 billion figure includes the costs of operating, maintaining and staffing the plants over 25 years.
Pandya said what’s been released are internal planning documents, saying SaskPower models and plans for all different kinds of scenarios.
Aleana Young, the NDP’s SaskPower critic, listened to Pandya’s news conference and said later that she heard the $26 billion figure is correct, that SaskPower had a number of different scenarios to model, the briefing note is real, and none of the other modelling will be made available to the public.
“This is a cover-up through and through, this is Premier Moe and Minister Harrison trying to hide the fact from Saskatchewan people that they have gambled $26 billion of their money and are trying to get away with it,” said Young.
