Despite being operational and providing powers to customers since mid-November, the Chinook Power Station was opened last week. 

The facility, which located near Swift Current, is a 353-megawatt facility that will generate enough electricity to power 350,000 homes. The station is very similar to the SaskPower Plant set to be built south of Moose Jaw.

SaskPower is currently forecasting the final cost of the project to be $605 million, which is $75 million under budget, something President and CEO of SaskPower, Mike Marsh, is proud of. 

"We achieved this by following a very good project management discipline and process," he said. "Our mission at SaskPower is to provide reliable, cost-effective and sustainable power for our customers and all the communities that we serve. They rely on SaskPower to ensure that they have the power they need today and into the future and the Chinook Power Station will help us keep that commitment." 

Swift Current Mayor, Denis Perrault, said that the project had provided a significant impact on the community. 

"It's huge. When this project was first announced a number of years ago, it was big. We were going through a time when we saw a decline in oil and gas, agriculture being uncertain, this project was huge. When you're talking almost $700,000 million spent within 10 kilometres of your community with a commitment to focus on local, local being the entire province, it was big for us." 

"It met for our hotels and our restaurants to be full. It met for our Broncos to have full attendance and our local team the 57's see lots of people be there. It's things like everyone's getting gas," he continued. "Burns & McDonnell made a real commitment in order to leave legacies and to be able to support local. We saw it through things like SaskAbilities; we hosted the Western Canada Summer Games this past summer we saw Burns and McDonell take a lead role on that as sponsorship dollars, it's been huge for our community, something we are very grateful." 

Building the facility created more than 500 jobs during the construction process, with 25 workers to run the facility permanently going forward. 

Next Monday, Moose Jaw City Council will discuss The SaskPower Servicing Agreement, getting that much closer to the local plant becoming a reality.