Construction of the first ever utility-scale solar project in Saskatchewan will begin in the coming months

On Tuesday Saskpower announced they signed a 20-year power-purchase agreement with Saturn Power for a 10-megawatt solar poject. That's enough to power roughly 2,000 homes.

"In 2015 we set a goal of reducing emmisions by 40 per cent over 2005 levels by 2030 and that'll involve increasing our renuable generation capacity from about 25 per cent now up to 50 per cent in that same time frame," said SaskPower Media Relations and Issues Management Consultant Jordan Jackle.

SaskPower has been working on this project since 2016, in that time they received 16 different proposals from 12 different companies. After evaluating all the proposals they chose Saturn Power to build, manage, and operate the facility.

The facility is going to be giving off 10 megawatts of power, but that is only the first step to their master plan.

To deliver on their commitment to reduce emissions, the Crown corporation is planning on doing lots of the work through wind power.

Their goal is to have an additional 1,900 megawatts with the help of wind power by 2030. As of now they are keeping a close eye on solar technology to see where it goes in the future.

"It will be interesting to see over the coming years what happens with the solar technology," Jackle said. "It is a newer technology, the prices for the technology are falling, so we're watching that very closely to see what bigger role it might play in the years to come."

Saskpower has also commited to working to meet the rising electricity demand in the province.

The project is said to be roughly 80 acres. They are hoping to have the project up and running as early as the end of 2019.