Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) at Duke Edwardsport

by | Jun 14, 2013 | Industrial Energy & Onsite Utilities, Industry, Power Generation

Jim Cahill

Jim Cahill

Chief Blogger, Social Marketing Leader

Gasification technologies can reduce the emissions from coal used for electrical power generation. Emerson’s Alan Novak, Director of the Mining and Power industry teams, provides an update on some projects coming online.

Emerson's Alan NovakDuke Energy recently announced commercial operation of its 618MW Edwardsport, Indiana Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) Power Plant. Edwardsport, as well as Southern Company’s Kemper County IGCC project (still under construction), have faced numerous schedule and budget challenges over the course of their development. Both of these facilities utilize a technology, coal gasification, which has not previously been deployed at this scale for power generation.

What is IGCC?

An Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plant first converts coal to a synthesis gas, or syngas, through a gasification process (high temperature and pressure) and then burns the syngas in a Combined Cycle Power Plant to produce electricity.

Source: United States Department of Energy, the Energy lab, Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), https://jimc.me/12Lc4dk

The gasification step allows for the removal of both Sulfur and Mercury from the gasified coal while at the same time producing a concentrated stream of carbon dioxide suitable for capture (Duke Edwardsport does not include CO2 capture while the Kemper County plant will capture 65% of its CO2 for use in enhanced oil recovery). An additional benefit is reduced solid waste since the remaining solids leave the gasifier as a vitrified, inert slag.

Given the added complexity of the gasification step, it is expected that these plants will be more expensive than a conventional pulverized coal plant, which burns coal directly to produce steam.

The US Energy Information Administration provides a comparison of the expected costs of various generating technologies (partial list):

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration | Assumptions to the Annual Energy Outlook 2013, p5, https://jimc.me/1bDCkoa

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration | Assumptions to the Annual Energy Outlook 2013, p5, https://jimc.me/1bDCkoa

So how do the actual costs of the Duke Edwardsport and Kemper County IGCC plants compare with the above estimates from the US Energy Information Agency?

  • Duke Edwardsport: $3.4B actual (vs. original estimate of $2B) for 618MW output = $5500/KW (no CO2 capture)
  • Kemper County: $4.3B actual to date (vs. original estimate of $2.4B) for 582MW output = $7388/KW (65% CO2 capture)

This means the actual cost of building the plants were respectively 48% and 99% greater than the EIA estimate (and significantly more than their original budgets).

New technologies generally face some degree of cost uncertainty during the first commercial-scale deployment and these plants are no exception. The Edwardsport facility is the largest IGCC in both the US and the world, while the Kemper County plant utilizes a new gasification process, the KBR/Southern Transport Integrated Gasifier, in its first commercial application. Kemper County is also the first plant in the US to include large-scale CO2 capture (for enhanced oil recovery).

It is interesting to note that other countries are using coal gasification for a very different purpose. China is currently implementing coal gasification plants across in multiple regions to produce chemicals, liquids and natural gas.

Do IGCC plants represent the future of coal-based power generation in the US or will their costs prove unsupportable? Only time will tell.

Popular Posts

Comments

Follow Us

We invite you to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube to stay up to date on the latest news, events and innovations that will help you face and solve your toughest challenges.

Do you want to reuse or translate content?

Just post a link to the entry and send us a quick note so we can share your work. Thank you very much.

Our Global Community

Emerson Exchange 365

The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the authors. Content published here is not read or approved by Emerson before it is posted and does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Emerson.

PHP Code Snippets Powered By : XYZScripts.com