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Tampa Electric to Test Carbon Capture Technologies at Big Bend, Polk Stations

Tampa Electric said on Monday it is participating in two DOE-funded demonstration projects at the company’s Big Bend and Polk Power Stations. The projects are designed to advance carbon dioxide capture technologies and could lead to the development of technologies on a large scale.

The company said it had partnered with Siemens Energy to pilot the German company’s POSTCAP capture technology at Big Bend. Tampa Electric said it would also partner with RTI International and the Shaw Group to conduct a separate study on “a new technology to clean synthetic gas (syngas) at elevated temperatures.”

That study will evaluate the construction of a pilot project to demonstrate the technology on a 30% side stream at the Tampa Electric Polk Power Station’s 250-MW integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant.

The Shaw Group was awarded a contract by RTI International, which is working with the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory to design and build a sulfur removal demonstration unit.

“The new technology that will be evaluated for possible demonstration at the Polk Power Station is expected to significantly reduce the capital and operating costs of an integrated gasification combined cycle plant that is equipped with carbon capture technology,” Tampa Electric said in a statement.

According to Tampa Electric, Siemens will design, install, and operate a pilot plant at the Big Bend Power Station located in Ruskin, Fla., to treat a slipstream (1 MW equivalent) of the plant’s flue gas emissions and demonstrate its POSTCAP technology.

Siemens recently received an $8.9 million grant from the DOE to demonstrate the technology. The technology essentially uses an amino acid salt formulation as a solvent for CO2 absorption.

The pilot plant is designed to capture approximately 90% of the CO2 from the flue gas slipstream. According to Siemens, it will be installed downstream of an existing Siemens wet flue gas desulfurization system (processing 890 MW of flue gas in a single absorber). The pilot plant is scheduled to be in operation in 2013.

Earlier this July. Siemens won a Front End Engineering Design (FEED) contract from Summit Texas Clean Energy LLC to provide coal gasification and power block technology for the Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP), a proposed project that will be located near Odessa, Texas.

The new polygeneration IGCC project will use coal as its feedstock and capture 90% of emitted carbon dioxide. With a gross capacity of 400 MW, the plant will also produce urea for the U.S. fertilizer market.

The CO2 will be used for enhanced oil recovery in the West Texas area. Siemens will be working with Fluor Corporation and Linde during the project’s FEED. That project received a $350 million award under the DOE’s Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) – Round 3 to demonstrate the commercial integration of large-scale IGCC with CO2 capture and geologic storage.

Sources: Tampa Electric Co., Siemens Energy

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