10 September 2010 -- Tampa Electric plans to partner with RTI International to build  a pilot project to demonstrate technology to remove sulfur and capture and sequester CO₂ from the Tampa Electric Polk Electric Station’s 250 MW  integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) unit.

Tampa Electric will work with RTI over the next six months to finalize project details. RTI then will design, construct and operate the pilot plant that will capture a portion of the plant’s CO₂ emissions to demonstrate the technology. The pilot plant will be designed to capture CO₂ from a 30 percent side stream of the coal-fired plant’s syngas. Plans call for the plant to be completed in 2013. The syngas, a synthetic gas generated by the gasification of coal and petroleum coke, is used as a fuel in the plant’s combustion turbine to create electricity. The CO₂ capture and sequestration demonstration phase would take place over a one-year period. The project is expected to sequester approximately 300,000 tons of CO₂ more than 5,000 feet below the Polk Power Station in a saline formation.

RTI, working with the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, has also awarded a contract to the Shaw Group to design and build a sulfur removal demonstration unit at the Polk Power Station. The demonstration sulfur removal unit is expected to significantly reduce the capital and operating costs of an integrated gasification combined cycle plant equipped with carbon capture technology.

The DOE federal grant of approximately $168 million will fund the design, construction and testing of a warm gas cleanup system combined with carbon capture at a pre-commercial scale of approximately 50 MW electric equivalent.

The Polk Power Station is located approximately 40 miles southeast of Tampa and about 60 miles southwest of Orlando. POWER-GEN International offers a technical tour of the plant on December 13. Click here for full registration details.

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