RWE Considers 2,000-Megawatt Power Plant for Tilbury

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--RWE npower (Swindon, England), part of energy giant RWE AG (OTC:RWEOY) (Essen, Germany), has admitted that the company is considering building a new 2,000-megawatt (MW) gas-fired power plant at the existing Tilbury coal-fired plant in Essex.

The new combined-cycle gas-turbine (CCGT) plant would replace the ageing 1,600-MW coal-fired facility, which under the European Union's Large Combustion Plant Directive, must close by 2015 because of excessive emissions. RWE's announcement of a possible CCGT plant comes just a few months after the company shelved plans to build a new 1,600-MW cleaner-coal-fired plant at Tilbury, claiming the economic conditions did not support the move.

"This is just an option at this stage, but our Tilbury site is an excellent one for power generation," said Kevin McCullough, chief technical officer for RWE npower. "It has good energy infrastructure and is close to areas of high electricity demand. Gas generation has a part to play in our energy mix alongside coal, renewables and nuclear projects."

Today, Tilbury generates enough electricity for about 1.4 million homes, but the new 2,000-MW CCGT would generate electricity for up to 3 million homes.

Part of the Tilbury site has already been identified for a carbon capture and storage (CCS) pilot in the future by RWE npower. Until the end of last year, RWE was part of a CCS consortium with Dong Energy (Copenhagen, Denmark) and Peel Energy (Manchester, England) that was seeking to win funding in the U.K.'s CCS competition for a 400-MW plant. The consortium dissolved in November, claiming the "decision to withdraw from the competition for funding for a 400-MW CCS demonstration project was because the competition timetable is not compatible with the partner companies' respective coal-development plans." For additional information, see November 12, 2009, article -Plans for U.K. CCS Projects Suffer Setback.

RWE npower has since struck out on its own, announcing that it has teamed up with Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (The Hague, Netherlands) to implement one of the largest CCS projects in the U.K. at the 1,500-MW coal-fired Aberthaw power station in South Wales. For additional information, see December 23, 2009, article - RWE and Shell to Build Welsh CCS Plant.

McCullough commented: "The development of CCS technologies is essential if we are to meet national carbon emissions targets and maintain secure supplies of electricity. We are already developing a carbon dioxide capture pilot plant at our coal station in Aberthaw, South Wales. A modern gas station at the Tilbury site would be 'CCS ready' and, in the future, could enable us to capture CO2 from our plant using this alternative technology."

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