Nova Scotia Power plans to burn heavy fuel oil in phased-out coal plants

Nova Scotia Power plans to burn heavy fuel oil in coal-fired power plants after they close in 2030.

The company plans to convert three coal-fired units at the Lingan Generating Station in Cape Breton to heavy fuel oil by 2030 and keep them in operation until 2050, according to documents filed in the latest investment filing.

The proposal, first reported by Allnovascotia.com, is drawing heat from an environmental group and questions from regulators.

It sounded counterintuitive to Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board member Jennifer Nicholson.

“Looking at some of these conversions, I have to say I was a little surprised that we’re moving away from coal, but we’re moving to heavy fuel oil. It doesn’t seem real, you know, it’s a lot cleaner,” Nicholson said at a recent hearing on Nova Scotia Power’s capital spending plan.

Nova Scotia Power’s chief operating officer, Dave Pickles, responded that the company is “required to be off coal by 2030” by federal regulations.

“And only coal?” Nicholson asked.

“And only coal,” he said.

Plants would operate during peak demand

Pickles told the board that coal and fuel oil emissions are similar, but that the Lingan units would have “very low utilization rates.”

Nova Scotia Power said Lingan units using heavy oil would operate during peak periods, about five to 10 percent of the time, usually during the coldest days of winter when power generation needs to be ramped up quickly.

Lingan is Nova Scotia Power’s largest power station. It consists of four coal-fired units, each capable of generating 150 megawatts of electricity. The fourth unit is held in what Nova Scotia Power calls “cold reserve,” meaning it can be restarted in an emergency.

“If it retires completely, we will have to build replacement energy at a much higher cost than it would be to switch to oil because these facilities already have that capability,” Pickles said. “We may need to add some extra tank capacity or we may need to put it on oil at full capacity. But that transition is relatively easy and cost effective.”

He said switching to oil is “significantly cheaper” than replacing existing facilities with new power generation capacity.

Lack of ambition

When asked by Nicholson what happens if the government decides to ban the use of heavy fuel oil, Pickles said: “We would need to add additional firm capacity to replace that lost generation, so [it] could be natural gas, fast acting generation, another form that could also require heavy fuel oil or light fuel oil given the limited nature of natural gas available here in the county.

The Ecology Action Center, a Halifax-based environmental group, said Nova Scotia Power shows a lack of ambition “when it comes to decarbonization”.

“They’ve kind of taken a bait and switch in terms of circumventing regulations requiring them to phase out coal by 2030,” says climate policy coordinator Thomas Arnason McNeil.

He wants to know what it will cost to retrofit coal-fired power stations to run on heavy fuel oil, and how much it will cost taxpayers.

“The idea that heavy fuel oil is the only energy source that can fulfill that role is something I would like to see substantiated,” Arnason McNeil told CBC News Monday.

Nova Scotia Power declined to provide details of the potential cost of converting its Lingan units to heavy oil.

In a statement, Jacqueline Foster, spokeswoman for the company, said that “natural gas and hydrogen can provide alternative, cleaner fuel options for future new fast-acting generations in locations other than Lingan.

“We are exploring the conversion of certain units to natural gas where there is proximity to natural gas infrastructure.”

In response to questions from the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board about the utility’s capital planning case, Nova Scotia Power said its 154-megawatt coal-fired power plant at Point Tupper in Richmond County will be converted to natural gas in 2029 and operated. until 2049.

The 171 megawatt coal-fired power station at Point Aconi in Cape Breton will be decommissioned in 2029. The two coal-fired units at Trenton, with a combined capacity of 311 megawatts, will be decommissioned in 2028 and 2029.

Nova Scotia Power generates approximately 2,400 megawatts in total.