Carbon Capture Starts at Welsh Coal-Fired Plant

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- The first coal-fired power plant in Wales fitted with carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) has captured its first ton of CO2.

The U.K. arm of German energy major, RWE AG (OTC:RWEOY) (Essen, Germany), announced that the 1-ton target has been achieved at its carbon capture pilot plant, located at the Aberthaw Power Station in south Wales. CCS technology is seen as vital to reducing the amount of emissions from fossil-fuel power plants. The U.K. government has announced that no new coal-fired plants can be built without the inclusion of CCS technology, most of which is still in the pilot phase but which is expected to be ramped up to commercial scale in the coming years.

RWE npower (Swindon, England), with partner Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (The Hague, Netherlands) has built a 3-megawatt (MW) carbon capture plant at the 1,555 MW power plant. The post combustion method will use technology from Cansolv (Montreal, Quebec), which was acquired by Shell in 2008, and will be capable of capturing 50 tons per day of CO2 from a slipstream of the flue gas at Aberthaw. At 3 MW, the Aberthaw CCS pilot is one of the largest post-combustion CCS projects in the U.K.

"This pilot plant at Aberthaw will provide invaluable data on the viability of capturing carbon at an industrial scale, and help RWE to better understand how this technology could be used to reduce carbon emissions at coal-fired power stations," explained Kevin Nix, Head of Hard Coal and Gas, UK, RWE Generation.

Matthias Hartung, CEO, RWE Generation, added: "RWE now has more installed renewable energy capacity and a larger and more efficient gas-fired power station fleet than any other energy company in the U.K., and has invested more into new energy technologies for Britain than anyone else over the last few years. The carbon capture pilot plant is another step on the road to giving us the choice of technologies we need to create a modern, efficient and diverse energy portfolio that is capable of guaranteeing continuity of supply, while reducing costs and carbon emissions."

The companies are using an integrated sulphur-dioxide and carbon-dioxide capture unit designed by Cansolv at power station. It will capture 50 tons per day of CO2 from a slipstream of the flue gas. Cansolv said that the system is based on a 'regenerable' amine-based technology that will yield a high capture rate of CO2 with 'optimum energy consumption'.

The U.K.'s goals to be a hub for CCS development in Europe has suffered a few setbacks in recent months. In November, the proposed Don Valley project in Hatfield, Yorkshire, was overlooked by the U.K. government for its €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) funding competition shortlist despite topping the European Union's (E.U.'s) list of large-scale CCS projects in line for future funding. Project owner, 2Co Energy, dropped the project as a result. For additional information, see November 5, 2012, article - Leading U.K. Carbon Capture Project Cancelled.

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