Poplar River Power Station


Poplar River Power Station is a coal-fired station owned by SaskPower, located near Coronach, Saskatchewan, Canada, approximately from the Canada–US border.
The project to build the station was launched in the fall of 1974, with the Morrison Dam being constructed between 1975 and 1977 to provide cooling water for the station. Morrison Dam was built along the course of the East Poplar River. Work on the powerhouse began in 1975. The single stack is 122 metres in height. The lignite used to power the station is supplied from Westmoreland Mining's Poplar River Coal Mine.
Sask Power anticipates that the power station will be shut down by 2030.

Description

The Poplar River Power Station consists of:
  • one 291 net MW unit
  • one 291 net MW unit
The boilers are supplied by Combustion Engineering and Babcock & Wilcox. The turbines and generators are supplied by Hitachi.
The power station was originally planned to have four 300MW units. One of the limiting factors in building a power station of that size was the water supply. To obtain enough water for four generating units, SaskPower was considering diverting other water sources towards the East Fork of the Poplar River from as far away as Lake Diefenbaker.
Fuel from strip mines about to the north is delivered by the Poplar River Mine Railway.

SaskPower's Emissions Control Research Facility (ECRF)

The SaskPower's Emissions Control Research Facility, is located at the Poplar River Power Station and has the mandate to evaluate various technologies for controlling emissions. The station has been instrumented to provide real-time sampling of flue gasses. The ECRF facility was decommissioned in 2019.