Friday 29 May 2009

First carbon capture facility for commercial coal-fired plant switches on

Generator ScottishPower today switched on the first carbon capture facility for a commercial coal-fired power station in the UK.
A 30 tonne test unit will process 1,000m3 of exhaust gas per hour from Longanet power station in Fife.
Carbon dioxide will be removed using chemicals and turned into a liquid, ready for storage underground.
Energy company ScottishPower wants to test technology which could lead to a full scale carbon capture plant becoming operational by 2014.
The prototype at Loganet, developed by Aker Clean Carbon, is an exact, small-scale replica of a full-scale carbon capture plant. It will allow ScottishPower to test the complex chemistry involved in capturing CO2 from powerstation flue gases.
By retrofitting the technology to an existing power station, ScottishPower believe it is well-placed to kick-start a carbon storage industry for the Central North Sea by 2014.
ScottishPower’s parent company Iberdrola today also confirmed that it will establish a global Centre of Excellence to develop Capture and Storage (CCS) technology in the UK. To launch this, the company announced today that it will be funding a Chair in Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Edinburgh to provide a academic focus for the Centre of Excellence.
“We believe that the UK can lead the world with CCS technology, creating new skills, jobs and opportunities for growth,” said Iberdrola and ScottishPower chairman Ignacio Galán.
“There is the potential to create an industry on the same scale as North Sea Oil, and we will invest in Scotland and the UK to help realise this potential. Iberdrola will set-up its global Centre of Excellence for CCS in the UK to help accelerate the deployment of full-scale CCS.
“This prototype carbon capture unit is a major step on the road towards our Centre of Excellence and the essential data from the unit will shape our research. We are proud to be working with the University of Edinburgh, and this partnership will be pivotal in developing our Centre of Excellence.”
The prototype unit, which weighs 30 tonnes and covers an area of 85m2, will be able to process 1000 cubic metres of exhaust gas per hour from Longannet. Among other tests being carried out, ScottishPower scientists will be monitoring the effectiveness of the chemical amine solution that captures the CO2 under different conditions. The data will allow ScottishPower to better understand the science before a full-scale demonstration project is built, eventually capturing up to 90% of CO2 from Longannet. This would be equivalent to taking one million cars off the road.
“The test unit uses the exact same technology that we aim to retrofit to the station for a commercial scale CCS project by 2014, and the leap from 1MW to 330MW is now within sight,” said ScottishPower chief executive Nick Horler.
“There are over 50,000 fossil fuel power stations in operation throughout the world, and by proving that CCS technology can be retrofitted to existing stations, we can begin to address the carbon lock-in from these power plants.”

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