With first-stage funding now assured, an ambitious geothermal power production project in southeast Saskatchewan near Estevan is moving ahead.
Kirsten Marcia (nee Muir), a former Estevan resident who is president of Deep Earth Energy Production Corp. (DEEP) of Saskatoon, announced that SaskPower and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) have combined to guarantee $2 million for a front end engineering design (FEED) study. The process, she said, will ensure the economical and technical viability of geothermal energy as a resource for clean electrical power.
The two agencies will share the cost of this first stage on a 50/50 basis.
DEEP had made an earlier announcement stating that SaskPower was contemplating the opportunity and now, Marcia said, their participation and investment has been confirmed.
"It's base load power from well-known geothermal resources," said Marcia, who spoke with The Mercury on Aug. 26, explaining how the entire project could roll out over a short period of time to provide up to five megawatts of power in the first phase and then expand.
Because drilling and down hole work processes are so well-known in southeast Saskatchewan, Marcia said there was very little that had to be explained to local enthusiasts. She said a geothermal project similar to this power-generating plan generally costs about $7 million.
"It's capital intensive at the start, but it's a much faster pay back, really much faster than any wind project because the energy production is constant," she said.
A build-out of a geothermal project, in the neighbourhood of $35 million is easily within the realm of possibility.
Original shareholders and future investors have a business prospectus to study and Marcia said between the traditional shareholder base and loans, the project should be "easily financed" because going to the market with proven technology and planning lends a measure of assurance not seen in other experiments or projects of this nature.
"We are submitting a proposal to NRCan for future support funding, but really, the good news here is that federal funding, beyond the original, may not be crucial to the success of this project. It should be economically viable right from the start. It's less expensive than wind and solar, and it provides a solid base load of power, even better than what hydro can offer. It's practically invisible, and it's located where we need the power, so transmission costs are lower," Marcia said.
"It's just another made-in-Saskatchewan solution, and the amount of knowledge we've received from SaskPower's deep wells associated with the Aquistore project puts us well ahead of schedule. We've done the homework," said Marcia who is also a lead geologist on the project.
"The additional advantages lie in the fact that Saskatchewan understands this process. They get it. We don't have to spend hours trying to explain it in power point presentations," she said with a laugh.
"Then there is SaskPower and they have a global perspective too. They know what's going on 3,000 metres down in this corner of the province. We know about natural geothermal gradients for heat and power. There is a significant water flow. Permeability is important. It's all there."
Marcia added that "what's really important is that this is cheaper, easier, more predictable than wind and there is no environmental footprint. It's going to be located in Saskatchewan where we have an urgent need to find new power supplies. We'll be getting less net power from the coal fired plants once they're cleaned up, but coal is here to stay and so is natural gas. They're not going away, but we're now getting ready to provide a green power supply that makes sense economically."
The first $2 million investment by SaskPower and NRCan will be used to confirm data analysis, reservoirs and preliminary modelling as well as subsurface and surface designs and potential energy yields plus environmental and land use plans.
GeothermEx, a subsidiary of Schlumberger, has been contracted as project consultants. Their carbon services arm provided the reservoir modelling and engineering expertise for the SaskPower Aquistore project that has been built in concert with the Boundary Dam Power Station's Unit 3 commercial sized carbon capture project that is slated to come on stream sometime in early 2014. The Aquistore was built to assure carbon dioxide sequestration capabilities in a project headed up by the Petroleum and Technology Research Council (PTRC) in Regina who are currently engaged in further reservoir analysis.
The first phase of the DEEP project could be completed by the latter part of this year.
A positive outcome could very well lead to a power purchase agreement with SaskPower. There is the possibility of building multiple geothermal plants that would be barely noticeable on the Prairie landscape, said Marcia.
