Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
NDP SaskPower Critic Aleana Young addressing SaskPower rates on Feb. 25, 2026. NDP photo/LinkedIn
In January of 2025, the Saskatchewan government hinted at a bombshell: instead of shutting down its coal-fired power generation fleet by Dec. 31, 2029, it was considering refurbishing it and running it for many more years to come, as a bridge to nuclear power.
And on June 18, 2025, Crown Investments Corp. Minister and Minister Responsible for SaskPower Jeremy Harrison dropped that very bombshell. The province would indeed refurbish its coal fleet, not only extending its life, but bringing back Boundary Dam Units 4 and 5 from retirement. Doing so would save two coal mines (Estevan and Poplar River/Coronach), three power plants (Boundary Dam, Shand and Poplar River), and three communities (Estevan, Coronach and Bienfait) from economic doom. Between the mines and the power stations, 1100 jobs would be saved.
The big question was what would the NDP’s reaction be to this in the long run, given they are the “government in waiting.” After many months of studying it, on March 13, it was revealed. The NDP are not in favour of refurbishments, but also not in favour of shutting down coal right away, either.
Long-time NDP critic for SaskPower, Shadow Minister for Jobs and Economy, held a press conference in Regina which laid out a study they commissioned from an Quebec consulting firm, looking into the impact of coal refurbishments on power rates.
Young spoke to Pipeline Online on March 13 by phone. You can read that in-depth interview here.
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This is from the technical briefing, where Young said, “I’ve been working on this for a year, but this is all news to you in this room. As you’ll recall, last January, the Government of Saskatchewan and Minister Harrison made an announcement that Saskatchewan would be reinvesting in its lignite coal generation. And this marked a real shift in the electricity sector. It certainly took, I think, people in the province, let alone the Crown, by surprise, and I think was a real shift in the political landscape here in particular, just speaking super candidly, I remember reading this news and thinking to myself, like, “Oh, holy shit. This is, this is news! And I assumed that there would be more information forthcoming. But after you know, months later, it became clear that this major announcement was fairly light on details. Why would you invest in 50 Year assets to run them for 10 or 12 years?”
“Why use coal as a bridge to nuclear instead of natural gas? Does this mean SMRs are behind? Was natural gas capacity constrained? Did we have the workers to do this? What would this do to power bills? What would this do to the Crown debt load? All these kind of big, fundamental questions just remained, as there wasn’t really any answers that came, and it was clear that the government wasn’t going to show their work on this,” Young said.
“Historic losses, as we know at SaskPower, continue, and key measures around everything from long term debt to investments, diversity, sustainability, key liabilities, risks, they’ve all been dropped from public reporting. Electricity, as you guys know, is something I’m super passionate about, despite obviously not being an expert, but it’s fundamental to our economy. I mean, try running a business without electricity. It’s impossible, and I’m really proud of the Crown, and I think it’s fundamental to the future of the province and to our standard of living.
“So looking at this and having significant engagement with industry in particular, but with citizens, with farmers, around this decision, people started to call for a different path forward, and we really, I really wanted to take the politics out of this. I wanted to find out what the implications of the government’s plan were for the province and see what alternatives could emerge,” Young said.
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Asking the question
“We asked a question we didn’t know the answer to. We went out and we hired the best economic modelers in the country, these folks who are joining us today as ESMIA, they’ll walk through their credentials, but they work for national governments, sub national governments across Canada, including certainly the province of Quebec, Doug Ford’s government in Ontario, the federal government. They’ve done work for the United Nations and internationally, and we didn’t torque the numbers.
“We took SaskPower’s numbers, we took their constraints, and we ran the government’s plan through a variety of policy scenarios. So if, if there are clean electricity regulations, there is industrial carbon pricing, if there are no policy drivers, if it’s just SaskPower’s stated commitment to net-zero by 2050, we wanted to see what the impacts of the Sask Party’s plan would be on Saskatchewan customers, on rates and on the province overall. That was the motivation to do this work, to find the answer. Again, we didn’t torque the numbers. We didn’t want this to be ‘He Said, She Said.’ We didn’t want to get into a fight about the numbers. And these aren’t my numbers. We went out and we hired a globally reputable third party, independent firm, to do this critical work,” she said.
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Modelling
ESMIA used several models, the first being North American Times Energy Model (NATEM), and the second being RateVision. According to ESMIA’s technical briefing, NATEM was described as the core energy system optimization model, with multi-sector, multi-fuel, multi-regional considerations.
“It has a detailed representation of the North American energy system all the way from extraction, transformation, distribution and end users, and it informs strategic decision making in energy investments natively,” the EMSIA representative said. “An energy system optimization model outputs optimal energy mix evolution and investment decisions for capacity planning at least cost, as well as gives emission trajectories and energy service demands. It is particularly useful to study the evolution of energy systems under various targets and frameworks, providing view of the emerging technologies and emissions management options, as well as policy impacts on the energy system itself.”
The models the integrated energy system to inform strategic decisions. It used detailed representation of the energy system. The electricity sector modelled at the plant level for existing system. It also incorporates evolution of energy systems, emerging technologies, GHG mitigation options, and policy impacts.
They combined NATEM with RateVision, their proprietary “Consumer-centric energy rates model.” It incorporated the impact of energy demand and supply on consumer categories. It also looked at the evolution of consumer rates and charges for different energy commodities over modelling horizon. And then it assessed impacts of NATEM’s strategic investment planning on future energy rates for consumers consumption, transmission and distribution.
The rep said, “Setting up the context for the government plan scenarios that we’ve modeled, we’ve considered the Government of Saskatchewan’s announcement to continue running unabated coal-fired generation units past 2030 as the keystone of this scenario building. And in this project, we explored the future of Saskatchewan’s electricity system, including the generation mix and other areas of interest. For different assumptions, we were asked to assess the potential for renewables in Saskatchewan, to see what the potential for nuclear energy is in the province. What the effect is on the rate payers under these assumptions? What the question of standard reliance of the generation mix looks like, and what considering different demand levels and supply mix constraints gives to the generation mix that we obtain.
“So as I said, the scenario designed for this work was centered on the topic of coal refurbishment. So we use the public costs available in literature to run unabated coal fire generation units past 2030. We also designed some sensitivities regarding policy and net-zero by 2050 commitments. Under policy, we consider clean electricity regulations and the federal Output Based Pricing System, or the carbon price. And on the net-zero by 2050 side, we do consider what the effect of SaskPower’s commitments to this target for emissions plays into the model.
“Additionally, we also considered a model nuclear build out for available for around the mid 2030s and how that appears as part of the generation mix in the solution.”
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For context, SaskPower’s stated timeline is to make a final go-no go decision on small modular reactors in 2029, with construction to start in 2030 and first electrons by about 2034, with operation by 2035. Federal coal regulations would require all of Saskatchewan’s fleet of coal-fired power generators, with the exception of Boundary Dam Unit 3 (which has carbon capture attached) to shut down by Dec. 31, 2029. Currently SaskPower lists coal capacity at 1,389 megawatts. That number does not include the retired ~139 megawatt Boundary Dam Unit 4, which is first on the list for coal refurbishment. If it, and Boundary Damn Unit 5, are restored to full-time operation, the total nameplate coal output would be approximately 1,528 megawatts.
While on a typical day, coal makes up 25-30 per cent of power output, just a few years ago, on the coldest nights of the year, when wind and solar output were zero, and Boundary Dam Units 4 and 5 were still operational, coal made up 44 per cent of power output. Today, natural gas typically produces 50 per cent or more of power output. The retirement of BD 4 and 5, plus the addition of the natural gas-fired Great Plains Power Station at Moose Jaw, plus the addition of wind farms at Bekevar and Blue Hills accounted for the shift.
On March 13, hydro accounted for 12 per cent of power generated, of 379 megawatts averaged over 24 hours. Wind was 2 per cent, at 51 megawatts. Solar was negligible at 8 megawatts. Natural gas was 58 per cent at 1,839 megawatts. Coal was 25 per cent at 783 megawatts. “Other” was 3 per cent, at 102 megawatts.
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Renewables
The modelling also looked at the uptake of renewables in Saskatchewan, and constraining the buildout of renewables. Imports vs. self-reliant power generation were also considered, as well an increased demand.
The EMSIA representative said, “We found that from the scenarios that we modeled, the Government of Saskatchewan scenarios present higher rates on average due to the added cost of coal refurbishment.”
“We see that the highest rates, in this case, are observed under high demand and no import scenarios, additional to the cost of coal refurbishment.”
“The lower rates in this graph typically arise from imports and lower generation. So it is not an entirely self reliant generation mix under these cases.”
Significantly, the study discussed importing power generation. However, Minister Harrison has been repeatedly talking about putting Saskatchewan in a position to be an exporter of power, not an importer.
“We also see that emissions reduction measures, namely policy carbon pricing through the electricity regulations and the federal OBPS, as well as the net-zero 50 commitments drive investments in cleaner technology such as nuclear energy and renewables, also leading to some rate increases,” EMSIA said.
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“We do find that policy pushes higher rates in the medium term, since it acts on higher emitting units which coal is a part of, and significant clean energy investments are required in the short to medium term, with unabated coal still present in the energy mix, in order to comply with policy and indeed meet the net-zero 50 commitments that SaskPower does it intend to meet.”
“We find that across the scenarios, we found that rates are driven significantly by generation from unabated coal and then switching to cleaner nuclear energy options under both the net-zero 50 commitments and policy.
“We also found that when nuclear is not forced into the system by retiring coal, generation from nuclear tends to appear later in the horizon and to a smaller extent under the net-zero commitments rather than policy which does encourage higher nuclear uptake.
“We also find that generation from renewables, particularly wind, is still a significant part of the mix under all scenarios, including after the pessimistic outlooks forecasts, showing that renewable energy does play a significant role for Saskatchewan’s electricity mix.
“We do find that lower rates in these scenarios, as I said, do point to more imports. So you do see lower levels of generation for those scenarios, but that is in order to maintain the net-zero commitments, or indeed under policy pressure, the model does choose to use import capacity versus when you have a high demand and no import capacity specified, there is increased generation within the province.
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“Moving on to a capacity mix, we find that higher rates are driven significantly where the capacity mix are constrained on the build out of renewables such as wind and solar, particularly in the nuclear scheduled net-zero 50, low imports, high demand scenario. In such scenarios, we find that nuclear capacity build out is a significant part of the energy mix. And it may also be noted that while nuclear build outs do lead to higher rates, there are some benefits for heat production with SMRs that the model does take into account. But all of this to say that nuclear build up appearing in the solution does tend to point towards higher rates in the case where coal refurbishment has also taken place.”
For key takeaways, EMSIA’s representative said, “We find that the government plans could drive higher rates, and that coal refurbishment cost has a key impact on these rates. We also find that emissions reduction measures such as policy, CER, federal OBPS, as well as as well as the net-zero by 2050 commitments could encourage a more substantial shift in the short to medium term to clean energy, leading to higher costs in this term. And we also note that running refurbished coal longer, or past 2030, leads to higher overall emissions trajectories and puts additional pressure on the system to decarbonize using clean energy that does lead to shorter, shorter or medium term rate increases.”
The study considered the cost of SMRs going down over time as experience is gained in Ontario with its buildout of four SMR reactors at its Darlington Nuclear Generating Station. The current budget for that project is $20.9 billion.
Young noted EMSIA is independent, and non-political. Young said, “I think, if you’re seeing what we hope the key takeaways from this work are, is that the Government of Saskatchewan’s plans are the most expensive option for meeting the province’s growing power requirements, and doesn’t have a plan for growth.
“You can see in some of these scenarios, and we did look at many over the past several months of work, as you’ll all be aware, this has been an evolving policy landscape, certainly on the federal scene since we first started this work. And the current government’s plan will lead to higher rates, the options that have been presented here, where there are slightly lower rates, again, under the government’s plan, these are the options with less security, which is what the government has said their primary focus is.
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“This will have more imports and will have lower generation capacity to meet the needs of of the growing province. So the options presented by the government, alternatives with the lower rates, are those that will rely more on imports from other jurisdictions, leading to less energy security for the province, and also have lower generation capacity, which I think is an important point.
“The decision to run coal and nuclear at the same time, again, leads to the highest rates, I think, as (EMSIA) pointed out, if nuclear is allowed, if the model is just allowed to choose nuclear, rather than, say, forcing it on the mid 2030 timelines that the government has committed to, it does still come in as part of the mix, but at a lower cost, as coal is retired, whereas undertaking the coal refurbishment work and doing the nuclear build out simultaneously leads to the highest rates across all customer classes here in Saskatchewan, and … some of the labor market challenges that would accompany that as well.”
Young said the NDP will present its preferred option later.
She added, “We ran alternative scenarios, which we will be walking you guys through at a later date, in terms of what alternative plans could look like for Saskatchewan. We looked at those with CER and OBPS, and we looked at the government’s plan with no policy pressures. And all the government’s plan under every scenario is the most expensive for rates for people in Saskatchewan, customers of all classes.
“And again, I think two really important points to highlight are the risk that currently exists for further cost increases. Again, we’ve taken the Sask Party and SaskPower at their word the public, the cost that the minister has committed to publicly are what we used. If the coal refurbishment project costs more than $900 million those rates will go up significantly, obviously, depending on the increase in costs, and again, if there are policy pressures. So if Saskatchewan isn’t able to be the only jurisdiction in Canada without industrial carbon pricing, or if the Clean Electricity Regulations rise from the dead, they will further pressure rates.”
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