Calpine announced the acquisition of the 550 MW Quail Run Energy Center natural gas-fired plant in Odessa, Texas, from Lotus Infrastructure Partners, formerly known as Starwood Energy Group Global.
The combined-cycle facility began commercial operations in 2007, and its power is sold to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
Calpine has recently been making moves to develop or buy new power generation in multiple regions.
After seeing positive market signals in Texas, Calpine began redevelopment efforts in the Lonestar State last year. The company is reportedly on track to add over 1,000 MW of generation to its Texas fleet over the next few years.
Additionally, in response to skyrocketing energy prices within PJM Interconnection, Calpine plans to explore multiple new locations for generation capacity, particularly in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The company also said it would explore a potential expansion of its existing fleet. Over the last decade, Calpine has brought online 1,600 MW of new gas-fired generation within PJM territory. PJM is the largest grid operator in the U.S.
The company’s fleet is also involved in multiple carbon capture demonstrations.
Earlier this year, Calpine announced that it executed a cost share agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) for a full-scale carbon capture demonstration project at its Baytown Energy Center near Houston.
The Baytown Decarbonization Project is designed to capture 95% of CO2 emissions from two of the three turbines at the company’s Baytown Energy Facility, enabling the facility to produce electricity as well as steam for collocated industrial use. Calpine began the first phase of the DOE cooperative agreement, with other phases to follow upon successful completion of phase one and finalization of plans for subsequent phases.
In addition to the company’s Baytown project, Calpine continues to advance its similarly sized Sutter Decarbonization Project in California, for which it also recently executed a cost share agreement with OCED. The Sutter Decarbonization Project would be designed to capture 95% of carbon emissions from Sutter Energy Center. Calpine now plans to begin the first phase of the DOE cooperative agreement, which will support the engineering and design of the project. Sutter Energy Center is located in Yuba City, California. The 550 MW combined-cycle plant became commercially operable in 2001.
