SaskPower packs the room with contractors and suppliers, eager for work on coal refurbishments

By Brian Zinchuk
PipelineOnline.ca

ESTEVAN – The same day the legislative session wrapped up in Regina, with fiery rhetoric about how horrible it would be if Saskatchewan refurbished its coal-fired power plants, a seminar was held in Estevan for suppliers eager to work on that very project.

Approximately 120 people plus about 20 SaskPower staff packed the Southeast College auditorium on May 14. The invitation-only event drew mostly companies that have worked with SaskPower before, along with community leaders from the city, municipality and Indigenous communities. They heard from SaskPower executives including Gregg Milbrandt, vice president of Asset Strategy and Planning, and Rhea Brown, executive vice president, Customer Experience & Procurement.

The room was packed on May 14 with businesspeople eager to get a piece of the action on the impending coal refurbishment project. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

Attendees heard details like generator rewinds, substantial work on water treatment facilities and coal handling equipment. There's a lot to be done.

The long term goal is for coal-fired power to act as a bridge to nuclear. But it will be many years before any reactors are running, let alone enough to replace the existing coal fleet and handle growth. The refurbishments are meant to get us there.

Brown told Pipeline Online, "Today in Estevan, we're pleased to be here to host our supply chain involved with our coal assets, because we are life extending all seven of our units, and we are highlighting the work that's going to happen, the timing of that work and when the procurement packages will be out for bid."

SaskPower has designed multiple job packages to create scopes that align with local capacity. In most, it will look for larger contractors to engineer or lead construction while partnering to include local subcontractors and labour. Some scopes, including Engineering, Procurement & Construction Management (EPCM) or General Constructor (GC), are expected to span the whole project. Others are specific to individual plants.

Brown said SaskPower hit a record "committed spend" this past fiscal year, with $1 billion committed to Saskatchewan suppliers. Suppliers can find work packages on MERX and SaskTenders.

Milbrandt outlined the sequencing. "From a sequencing at a high level, we are focusing on the 300 megawatt units first, starting with BD6. We will be alternating on the 300 megawatts between our Estevan area as well as the Coronach area. So it's going to go BD6, PR2, Shand, then PR1. Following the three hundreds, we will then life-extend the 150 megawatt units … it goes BD3, BD5, BD4. Boundary Dam 3 ends up in that period where it's that half-life extension. It was fully rebuilt in 2014."

Some work starts this fall. "We've actually got some work starting this fall, on BD6, retubing the condenser," Milbrandt said, describing early phase work at Boundary Dam and Poplar River to keep equipment running until the life extension windows.

Brought back to life

In April, Boundary Dam Unit 4, which had been retired, was brought back to life. Milbrandt said BD4 was producing 120 megawatts that morning, and that all four units at Boundary Dam are now in operation.

That matters. The reason a multi-billion dollar Bell data centre is under construction southeast of Regina is precisely because SaskPower had the capacity to restore roughly 300 megawatts of dispatchable power to the grid. That data centre, with an anticipated economic impact of $12 billion, will require 300 megawatts. On May 18 and 19, coal-fired output exceeded an average of 1,000 megawatts per day. SaskPower often uses round numbers. BD4 and BD5 each carry a 139 megawatt nameplate capacity but are referred to as 150 megawatt units.

BD4 and BD5 had been retired due to federal coal regulations, their lives extended under a 2018 coal equivalency agreement. BD4 was fully disconnected from the grid in late 2024.

Sandon Weber of Sector 1, a local contracting firm, wasn't chasing plant work so much as the spinoffs. "We want to be ready for there's going to be added population growth in Estevan. So looking at building homes, building rental properties, hotel accommodations, stuff like that."

Jim Wilson of Wil-Tech Industries has done maintenance, repair and overhaul on the plants for 35 years and now hopes to join the full build. "With the potential of the coal rebuild, and if you threw in nuclear that's 20 years of construction," he said. "This is a good deal for us, and it's better than where we were headed with the other deal. So we see coal and power generation surviving for 20 more years in the community."

Article edited down for length. Used with permission.