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Running parallel to the EURELECTRIC Convention and Conference 2009 was an exhibition focusing on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies. CCS is a series of technologies enabling the capture of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel-fired power stations and other industrial installations, its transport and its safe storage underground. This promising technology group, once successfully demonstrated on an industrial scale, is expected to help reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases linked to harmful climate change. It will therefore make a vital contribution to ensuring the continued use of plentiful and easily accessible fossil fuels and thus to energy supply security in Europe. EURELECTRIC has recently published several position papers on CCS, including views on CCS demonstration plant selection criteria and comments on funding mechanisms for CCS demonstration. At the exhibition six European power companies leading the technology drive showcased their CCS projects and made presentations on their vision of the role CCS can play in meeting the energy-climate challenges in Europe and beyond.
“We need to take a holistic view of coal use”, Heinz Bergmann of Germany-based energy group RWE told the audience as he outlined the company’s clean fossil fuel use strategy, which is being developed across three time horizons. Firstly, the company is modernising its current power fleet, currently overhauling some 6,500 MW of plant. In a second step, the company will focus on efficiency increases with new 700°C plants. CCS plants represent the third stage on RWE’s horizon. “Achieving greater thermal efficiency is a no-regret strategy”, stressed Mr Bergmann, adding that the company envisages that thermal plant showing 50% energy-efficiency will be developed by 2020. RWE also aims to build all its new coal-fired power plants “capture-ready” – ie ready to install CO2-capture technology and link up to a CO2 transport system when these become commercially available in the coming years. The company hopes to take an investment decision on a lignite-based 400 MW IGCC demo plant with CCS in “early 2011”. This would allow RWE to start constructing the plant in 2012, and have it in operation in 2015. The plan also includes the construction of a new CO2 pipeline to transport the CO2 to storage at saline aquifers in Northern Germany. RWE is also investigating alternative CO2 uses, such as enhancing biomass growth, especially algae, with a pilot installation at its Niederaussem power plant. Synergies must be exploited between the power, chemical and other industries, underlined Mr Bergmann.
France-headquartered energy group GDF Suez emphasises the need for a balanced energy mix, in which fossil fuels will play a key role for decades to come. With this in mind, CCS can offer a “promising transitional” technology towards a low-carbon energy future, and the company is committed to assessing the feasibility of CCS at all its new coal-fired power plants and to taking “adequate measures for capture-readiness if necessary,” explained Luc Van Nuffel. As regards proposals from some quarters that CCS should be mandated however, “the idea of imposing CO2 emissions performance standards on power plants is not the right way to go”, Mr Van Nuffel stressed, adding: “improving plant efficiencies is a prerequisite for implementing CCS technologies.” GDF Suez is active in various CCS research, development and demonstration projects along the whole CCS chain. In capture, the company is participating in the DECARBIT, CASTOR and CESAR projects and is also investigating cryogenic capture at a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility, using free cold from LNG in the capture process instead of CO2-solvent technologies. Regarding transport of captured CO2, the company is investigating both pipeline transport and shipping options. GDF Suez is also involved in two different storage projects. A pilot project has been running in the Netherlands since 2004, storing CO2 in a depleted gas field at a depth of 4000 metres. Another pilot is being developed in Altmark, Germany, as an enhanced gas recovery project.
Italian electricity major Enel is planning to build 5000MW of clean coal capacity and wants to develop CCS retrofitting capabilities for its fossil-fuel fired fleet. Therefore the company is actively pursuing two large-scale CCS demonstration projects, with different phases being realised at different plants, Pietro Barbucci told the audience. In a post-combustion project, Enel is going to retrofit one 660MWe unit of its Porto Tolle power station with capture equipment and start CO2 injection in 2015. As a first phase of the project, Enel is currently constructing a smaller-scale capture plant at the Brindisi power station, to be completed by December 2009. A pre-feasibility study for the Porto Tolle project has been completed. “The investment decision for the large demo is planned to be taken by end-2010, which would allow the construction to start by mid-2012,” Mr Barbucci revealed. “Afterwards we will need five years to test the technology at full scale”. This means that Enel envisages that a full-scale commercial CCS plant could be in operation by 2025. In another demonstration project, Enel is developing a 48MW oxy-coal power plant at its Brindisi power station. The design and construction is currently under way, and the company hopes to have the unit in operation in 2011. A full-scale 320MWe demo plant is envisaged for 2017, said Mr Barbucci.
Finnish energy group Fortum is developing a CCS plant at Meri-Pori together with Finnish partner TVO. The project, baptised FINNCAP, is a national project involving large power companies and other key stakeholders. “We consider that industry winners will be made during the demonstration phase”, Mikko Iso-Tryykäri, project manager for Fortum’s CCS demo project, told the audience. Fortum’s plan is to retrofit the Meri-Pori plant, either with oxy-fuel or post-combustion technology. “The Mero-Pori plant was commissioned in 1995 and is modern technology. It has a long lifetime ahead, and is therefore a good plant to use for demo purposes”, said Mr. Iso-Tryykäri. As a result of the deployment of CCS technology, the overall efficiency of the plant will drop from 43% to 34%, and the plant’s output will decrease from 565MW to 400-440MW, he revealed. Fortum intends to establish the most efficient chain of partnerships possible across the chain of capture, transport and storage of CO2. The demo project will rely on ship transport of CO2, and the company is currently looking for suitable storage locations in the Baltic Sea area - Poland, Denmark or Germany - or in the North Sea. Company representatives stressed that ship transportation “must be brought within the EU legislative framework for CCS.” If all goes according to plan, the FINNCAP project should be up and running in 2015, “at the latest”. Fortum considers that this retrofit technology could benefit hundreds of other coal plants in Europe as well as making key advances in pioneering CO2 shipping for those countries with no nearby storage sites. “We are currently the second-lowest emitter of CO2 among the major European power companies and we plan to be the lowest”, said Joonas Rauramo.
In addition to various R&D activities, Spanish electricity major Endesa is planning a 500MW circulating fluidized-bed (CFB) oxy-fuel demonstration plant with CCS. The company intends the plant to fire various fuels, including domestic and imported coals and biomass, which led to the choice of the CFB technology. The plant is expected to capture 970g of CO2/kWh. “A major challenge is to minimise the energy penalty”: the plant is expected to have an efficiency of 32%, some 10% less than that of a modern coal-fired power plant, explained Carlos Quintana of Endesa Generaçion. Construction of the plant could start in 2012, after which the plant could be in operation by 2015 to gather operational experience. “We could have the technology available for 2020 for further retrofits”, Mr Quintana told the audience. A solution for transport and storage should be available within the same time-frame, he said.
“We cannot reach our carbon emission reduction commitments without CCS”, Steffan Görtz of Sweden-headquartered electricity group Vattenfall told the audience, adding that Vattenfall is interested in all capture technology options and is not seeking to pick a winner, as they should all become commercially available. Therefore the company stresses the need to achieve progress in demonstrating CCS technologies across Europe, and across various technologies. “We are not in this alone”, Mr Görtz underlined, calling for “pluralism in thinking” and adding: “We hope that all demo plants are successful.”
A leader in early pilot projects, Vattenfall is currently operating a 30MWth
oxy-fuel pilot plant at Schwarze Pumpe in Germany and is planning two
large-scale demonstration projects, one in Aalborg, Denmark, and another in
Jänschwalde, Germany. In Aalborg, the world’s most efficient coal-fired power
plant, Nordjyllandsvaerket, will be equipped with post-combustion capture
technology and the captured CO2 would be stored at the nearby Vested
structure. This demonstration plant could be in operation in 2013 at the
earliest. In the Jänschwalde project, the company is investigating the
retrofit of one of the power plant’s six 500MW units with either oxy-fuel or
post-combustion technology. The plant is fired with local lignite and the
demo would be in operation in 2015 at the earliest. Transport and storage
options are also under investigation. Mr Görtz pointed to the resulting
energy penalty as a challenge, but expressed confidence that by 2020 the
company will be able to build an oxy-fuel power plant with today’s efficiency |
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