American Electric Power (AEP) has announced that it is to receive around $4 million of funding from the Global CCS Institute (GCCSI) to help it develop a commercial scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration project in the USA.
The funds from the Australia-based GCCSI will be used to support the initial engineering and characterization phase of the project, which will be located at AEP’s Mountaineer coal-fired power plant in New Haven, West Virginia.
The project has already won funding from the US Department of Energy and will be the first commercial-scale CCS system in the USA, says AEP.
“We appreciate the support we are receiving from the Global CCS Institute. Having them involved clearly demonstrates that commercialization of carbon capture and storage technology is an essential component of a successful global climate strategy,” said Michael G. Morris, AEP chairman and chief executive officer.
“If we are going to address climate change in any meaningful way, we have to develop technologies that can be deployed worldwide to cut emissions from coal-fuelled electricity generation, which continues to supply a large part of our world’s energy needs.”
The CCS facility will use Alstom’s chilled ammonia process to capture at least 90 per cent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from 235 MW of the Mountaineer plant’s 1300 MW of capacity. Some 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year will be captured and will be treated, compressed and injected into geological formations for permanent storage.
The project is due to start commercial operation in 2015.
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