POWER September 2020 - 12

GLOBAL MONITOR
as part of the Future Energy Fund, which
the company launched in 2018 to explore
" breakthrough technologies that enable
macro
decarbonization,
the
mobility4.
Vattenfall's Nuon Magnum gas power
plant in the Netherlands currently has three
combined cycle gas turbines with a capacity
of 440 MW each. A consortium is working to
convert the plant to run wholly on hydrogen by
2023. Courtesy: Equinor/Sander Van Der Werf
investment in Zap Energy, a Seattle-based
startup company founded in 2017 that is
developing a fusion modular nuclear reactor
and says it has made breakthroughs in
plasma confinement technology.
" We see fusion technology as a promising
low-carbon future energy source, "
said Barbara Burger, president of Chevron
Technology Ventures. " Our Future
Energy Fund investment in Zap Energy
adds to Chevron's portfolio of companies
we believe are likely to have a role in the
energy transition. " Burger noted that
Chevron has so far made 10 investments
energy nexus, and energy decentralization. "
The investments, which include
more than $1 billion in CCS projects in
Australia and Canada, serve to provide
Chevron with " strategic insight into
power generation markets and potentially
disruptive impacts of innovative approaches,
like fusion, geothermal, wind,
and solar, on the conventional power
value chain, " she said.
-Sonal Patel is a POWER senior
associate editor.
Supercritical CO2 Pilot Power
Plant Gearing Up for 2021
Demonstration
Construction of the 10-MW Supercritical
Transformational Electric Power (STEP)
pilot plant in San Antonio, Texas, is inching
along, and developers in July announced
that the building to house the innovative
project has been completed. The pilot
plant will demonstrate a fully integrated
electricity-generating power system that
uses supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2
)
When downtime is not an option
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The $119 million project is spearheaded
by research giant GTI in collaboration
with Southwest Research Institute
(SwRI) and GE Research with $84 million
in funding from the U.S. Department of
Energy's National Energy Technology
Laboratory. Now that construction of the
22,000-square-foot building at SwRI's
campus is complete, the developers will
work to complete component manufacturing
and equipment installation (Figure
5). Along with the new building, the facility
will comprise a separate electronics
room and a 30-ton crane to support
the project operation and construction of
the sCO2
power block. Other equipment
constructed on the facility's five-acre site
includes external heating elements and
a cooling tower. Skid-mounted components
will
allow for reconfiguration to
accommodate future testing on other
sCO2
-cycle-based power systems.
Commissioning and startup are slated
for early 2021, if several technical risks
and challenges are overcome. " After
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12
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POWER September 2020

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