Jul 28 2010
Tampa Electric today announced that the company has partnered with Siemens to pilot a project at Tampa Electric’s Big Bend Power Station to capture CO2 emissions from conventional coal-fired power plants using an environmentally friendly process developed by Siemens.
Tampa Electric also is partnering with RTI International and the Shaw Group to conduct a study on a new technology to clean synthetic gas (syngas) at elevated temperatures. The study will evaluate the construction of a pilot project to demonstrate the technology on a 30 percent side stream at the Tampa Electric Polk Power Station’s 250-megawatt IGCC plant.
Siemens will design, install and operate a pilot plant at the Big Bend Power Station located in Ruskin, Florida, to treat a portion of the plant’s emissions to demonstrate Siemens’ Postcap technology. This technology utilizes an amino acid salt formulation as a solvent for CO2 absorption. The pilot plant, which is designed to capture approximately 90 percent of the CO2 from a slip stream of the coal-fired plant’s flue gas stream, is scheduled to be operational in 2013. The goal of the project is to reduce the energy it takes to run carbon capture equipment and ultimately reduce costs to customers and move the technology closer to widespread use.
All four units at Big Bend Power Station now have state-of-the-art environmental control technologies and are among the cleanest conventional coal-fired units in the United States.
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.
The Polk Power Station is located in Polk County, Florida and is a world leader in the production of electricity using IGCC technology and has previously been named as the cleanest coal-fired power plant in North America.
“Tampa Electric has been an industry leader in reducing carbon dioxide emissions since 1998,” said Vice President Tom Hernandez. “We are pleased to partner with Siemens and RTI on the development of these innovative technologies and to continue to be on the forefront of tomorrow’s clean coal technology.”
Source: http://www.tampaelectric.com/