POWER November 2012 - 16

tion contract, and with the Export-Import Bank of China to
secure financing for the $2.5 billion Texas Clean Energy Project
(TCEP), a large-scale commercial coal gasification power/polygen
project that the company is developing near Odessa, Texas.
Siemens Energy is expected to provide a high-hydrogen combustion
turbine for the project, which proposes to remove carbon
dioxide, sulfur, and mercury from the project's gas stream prior to
combustion, leaving only a high-hydrogen/low-carbon clean " syngas "
as the sole fuel that is burned. The project will capture 90%
of its carbon dioxide emissions for use in enhanced oil recovery by
producers in the Permian Basin of West Texas. TCEP will also produce
more than 700,000 tons per year of urea as fertilizer, which will be
bought entirely by Minnesota-based CHS Inc., and Houston-based
Shrieve Chemical Co. will purchase TCEP's output (about 50,000
tons per year) of sulfuric acid. CPS Energy, San Antonio's municipal
electric and gas utility, will buy 200 MW of the plant's power.
About $450 million of TCEP's costs will be covered by a Department
of Energy cost-sharing program under the federal Clean Coal
Power Initiative.
RWE Opens 2-GW CCGT Plant in West Wales. RWE AG
opened its 2,160-MW Pembroke combined cycle gas turbine plant
on Sept. 19, handing over the fifth and final unit of the station
to its UK subsidiary RWE npower and culminating three years of
construction during which more than 10,000 contractors worked
7.4 million man hours to complete the $1.6 billion facility. The
new plant was built on a site formerly occupied by a 2,000-MW
oil-fired power station. The station was outfitted with five Alstom
GT26 single-shaft gas turbines, five drum-type heat recovery
steam generators, five STF30C steam turbines with axial exhaust,
and five TOPGAS turbo-generators. Swiss company ABB supplied
the automation system and the Shaw Group put up five heat
recovery steam generator boilers.
The power from the new plant in west Wales is badly needed by
the UK: About 40% of the country's existing generation facilities
were built before 1975 and are expected to be shuttered over the
next 10 to 15 years. Several fossil fuel-fired plants-including
RWE's own 2,000-MW coal-fired Didcot A power plant and the
1,000-MW oil-fired Fawley plant-will be shut down in line with
requirements of the European Union's Large Combustion Plant
Directive. Many nuclear power plants are also reaching the end
of their operational lives. Meanwhile, power demand in the UK
is expected to surge, forcing the country to increase generating
capacity by 35 GW by 2020 to ensure energy reliability.
SunPower Corp. Completes 1.3-MW Rooftop Solar Project
in San Francisco. California firm SunPower Corp. on Sept.
19 completed a 1.3-MW solar system on the roof of the Exploratorium,
a massive science museum under construction at Pier 15
in the heart of San Francisco's waterfront district. The system will
generate as many kilowatt-hours of power as the facility needs
when it opens in the spring of 2013. It uses 5,874 SunPower solar
panels, which the company says are up to 50% more efficient
than conventional panels, and a performance-monitoring system
that displays system performance, updated every 15 minutes, in
the lobby of the new 330,000-square-foot facility. Any energy
unused by the Exploratorium will be fed into the utility grid for
use by other Pacific Gas & Electric customers.
FENOC Plans to Expand Nuclear Fuel Storage Capacity at
Beaver Valley. FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. (FENOC) on
Sept. 19 announced plans to expand used nuclear fuel storage capacity
at its two-unit Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport,
Pa. The FirstEnergy subsidiary plans to install six above-ground,
airtight steel and concrete canisters that provide cooling to used
fuel assemblies through natural air circulation starting in the fall of
16
2012, but it says at least 47 additional canisters may be added as
needed after that project's completion in 2014. The canisters will be
stored on a thick concrete pad located within Beaver Valley's highly
secured protected area, providing additional safety assurance. The
storage system will be monitored closely by trained personnel and
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ensure its integrity.
Beaver Valley began operation of Unit 1 in 1976 and Unit 2 in
1987, and its used fuel assemblies have been stored in an indoor,
steel-lined pool within the power station. Approximately 40%
of each unit's 157 fuel assemblies are replaced and then stored
in the pool following each 18-month operating cycle. But the
fuel pool is expected to reach full storage capacity by 2015, and
" because a national repository for used nuclear fuel has not yet
been developed, Beaver Valley must plan for additional storage
space, " the company said.
Plant Barry CCS Demonstration Begins Underground Injection.
A carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) demonstration
project jointly under way by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.
(MHI) and Southern Co. in September began underground injection
of carbon dioxide (CO2) recovered from flue gas emissions
of a carbon capture facility built at Southern Co.'s Plant Barry in
Alabama. The demonstration test, which began last June, is the
world's largest in scale, capturing 500 metric tons per day (mtpd)
with a CO2 recovery efficiency of above 90%.
Injection is being performed in a saline formation at a depth
of 3,000 to 3,400 meters in the Citronelle Dome geologic structure,
which is approximately 12 miles west of the plant. The sequestration
aspect of the project is being conducted as Phase
III of the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program, a
program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The carbon capture facility consists primarily of a flue gas
scrubber, flue gas CO2 capture/regeneration system, CO2 compression
machinery, and electrical components. For CO2 recovery the
facility adopts MHI's KM CDR Process, which uses a proprietary
KS-1 high-performance solvent for CO2 absorption and desorption
that was jointly developed by MHI and the Kansai Electric Power
Co., Inc. MHI said it had previously completed small-scale demonstration
testing at 10 mtpd in cooperation with the Research
Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth and Electric
Power Development Co., Ltd. (J-POWER) and confirmed " uninterrupted
stable operation. "
Westinghouse Prepares for Possible AP1000 Construction
in Czech Republic. Westinghouse Electric, one of three
bidders vying for a multi-billion-dollar tender from Czech utility
CEZ to construct two new units at its Temelín nuclear power station,
on Sept. 11 said it would cooperate with Czech construction
company Hutní montáže a.s. to prepare for potential construction
of AP1000 nuclear plants in the Czech Republic and regionally.
If Westinghouse is awarded the tender, the Toshiba Corp.
unit said Hutní montáže would be responsible for performing the
vast majority of the mechanical installation and corresponding
construction testing, including assembly and installation of the
containment vessel.
Westinghouse has embarked on an initiative to develop a local
supply chain to prepare for construction of the reactors at
Temelín, including signing memoranda of understanding with major
Czech companies, notably I&C Energo a.s., Metrostav a.s.,
and Vítkovice a.s. Westinghouse's bidding competitors include
AREVA, which has put forward its EPR design, and Russia's AtomStroyExport
consortium, whose bid is based on Gidropress'
MIR-1200 third-generation VVER model under construction at
Leningrad Phase II and Novovoronezh Phase II. ■
-Sonal Patel is POWER's senior writer.
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POWER | November 2012
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POWER November 2012

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