H. R. Milner Generating Station is a

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as stratum, rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen ...

and

natural gas-fired power station A gas-fired power plant or gas-fired power station or natural gas power plant is a thermal power station which burns natural gas to generate electricity. Natural gas power stations generate almost a quarter of world electricity and a signifi ...

owned by Maxim Power, located near

Grande Cache Grande Cache is a hamlet in west-central Alberta, Canada within and administered by the Municipal District of Greenview No. 16. It is located on Highway 40 approximately northwest of Hinton and west of Edmonton. Grande Cache overlooks the Sm ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

. H.R. Milner is currently undergoing conversion from coal to natural gas as the power station's fuel source and is expected to be complete by April 2020.

Description

H.R. Milner's was first commissioned in 1972 as a

coal-fired power station A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts capacity. They generate about a th ...

consisting of a single 150 MW unit fuelled by

sub-bituminous coal Sub-bituminous coal is a lower grade of coal that contains 35–45% carbon. The properties of this type are between those of lignite, the lowest grade of coal, and those of bituminous coal, the second-highest grade of coal. Sub-bituminous coal ...

from a nearby coal mine. The plant was constructed and initially owned by

Canadian Utilities Canadian Utilities Limited is a member of the ATCO Group of companies. Canadian Utilities Limited is a Canada-based worldwide organization of companies with assets of approximately $7.3 billion and more than 6,500 employees in three main business ...

, then owned by

ATCO Power Atco or ATCO may refer to: Businesses * ATCO, a Canadian diversified company involved in manufacturing, utilities, energy and technologies ** ATCO Electric, a subsidiary of the above company * Atco (British mower company), a mower manufacturing com ...

from 2000 to 2004. The plant is named after

H. R. Milner Horatio Ray Milner, (27 March 1889 – 24 May 1975) was a Canadian lawyer and businessman. Milner is known for his extensive involvement in the Canadian oil and gas industry, having served as the president of several major natural gas compa ...

a former executive with Canadian Utilities. In March 2016, the station was temporarily shutdown by Maxim Power due to low demand. The station was temporarily shutdown again in April 2018 due to constrained fuel supplies.

Conversion to natural gas

In 2011, the Alberta Utilities Commission approved the construction of a new 500 MW Supercritical Unit. This was considered controversial as the approval was given just in time to allow construction to be completed before new federal regulations (essentially preventing new coal plant construction) were put into place. In the wake of new federal regulations governing greenhouse gas emissions introduced in 2012, Maxim Power applied to change the new unit from one 500 MW coal-fired generator, to two 260 MW natural gas fired generators. This application was approved by the Alberta Utilities Commission in June 2014. On 31 December 2019, Unit 1 was converted to running off 50%

and 50%

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon ...

, running off the fuel mixture at 9% capacity. Unit 2, a 204 MW simple-cycle natural gas-fired unit, is due to be commissioned in April 2020. This will change the power station's overall fuel mixture to 79% natural gas and 21% sub-bituminous coal.

References

Coal-fired power stations in Canada Municipal District of Greenview No. 16 Natural gas-fired power stations in Alberta {{Canada-powerstation-stub

Description

Conversion to natural gas

See also

References