Tampa Electric Participates in Two DOE Projects

Tuesday, 27 July 2010 09:15

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Tampa Electric is participating in two Department of Energy funded demonstration projects. In the first, Tampa Electric has partnered with Siemens for a project at the utility’s Big Bend Power Station to capture CO2 emissions from conventional coal-fired power plants using a green tech solution developed by Siemens.

According to TE, 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.” The technology uses an amino acid salt formulation as a solvent for CO2 absorption.

The pilot plant, which TE says is “designed to capture approximately 90 percent of the CO2 from a slip stream of the coal-fired plant’s flue gas stream,” is expected to be operational in 2013. The goal of the project is to reduce the energy it takes to run carbon-capture equipment and bring the technology closer to widespread use.

Tampa Electric Vice President Tom Hernandez says, “Tampa Electric has been an industry leader in reducing carbon dioxide emissions since 1998. 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.”

In the second, Tampa Electric is partnering with RTI International and the Shaw Group to evaluate the construction of a pilot project to demonstrate a new technology – one that cleans synthetic gas (syngas) at elevated temperatures – on a 30 percent side stream at the utility’s Polk Power Station’s 250-megawatt IGCC plant.

RTI International is working with the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory to design and build a sulfur removal demonstration unit, a new technology TE says 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 a leading producer of electricity using IGCC technology and was previously named as the cleanest coal-fired power plant in North America.