PPL Corporation announced it has executed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) for an award up to $72 million to help fund a carbon capture research and development project at the company’s natural gas combined-cycle (NGCC) generation facility in Louisville, Kentucky.
OCED awarded PPL with the first tranche of funding – $4.9 million – to begin Phase 1 activities. The carbon capture project – developed in partnership with the University of Kentucky and others – represents a total investment of more than $100 million and will be hosted at the Cane Run generating station jointly owned and operated by PPL subsidiaries Kentucky Utilities and Louisville Gas and Electric Company.
“We are proud to take the lead in evaluating and piloting carbon capture technology on natural gas combined-cycle generation, and we’re grateful for the DOE’s support,” said PPL President and Chief Executive Officer Vincent Sorgi. “Ultimately, we believe reliable, dispatchable natural gas units will be essential in the years ahead to ensure there’s sufficient supply to meet electricity demand 24/7. Further, we believe natural gas can be a reliable partner in accelerating the transition to renewables while preserving reliability and affordability.”
The system planned for Cane Run is designed to capture a portion of the CO2 from the natural gas plant’s flue gas using a heat-integrated CO₂ capture technology. PPL said the system is expected to capture more than 95% of the carbon emissions from up to 20 megawatts (MW) of the plant’s 691 MW generating capacity, or up to 67,000 metric tons of CO₂ per year.
PPL maintains that the demonstration project is an important step in assessing the future viability of utility-scale carbon capture technology on natural gas units. Current plans include the captured CO₂ being purified and reused in its entirety by a nearby industrial customer.
In addition to the University of Kentucky, collaborators on the project include the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI); Kentucky State University; Visage Energy; and American Welding & Gas. Vogt Power International Inc., a Babcock Power Inc. subsidiary, and Siemens Energy, manufacturers of the Cane Run 7 Generating Station, are contributing technical support as part of the project team on integrating the new CO₂ capture system. Koch Modular Process Systems and others will support the design, fabrication and construction of the carbon capture unit.
PPL subsidiaries LG&E and KU have partnered with the University of Kentucky for nearly two decades on various carbon capture research projects and were founders of the university’s carbon capture research program in 2006. Together with EPRI, the company and university deployed a pilot-scale carbon capture facility in 2014 at the KU E.W. Brown coal-fired generating station.
