Vattenfall pilot to move CCS projects forward
8 Feb 2010
London – Vattenfall has reported the arrival of two large engineering components at its pilot plant for CO2 capture in Buggenum, the Netherlands. The energy group is working through a subsidiary, Nuon, on the development of three different carbon capture technologies.
The Willem Alexander power plant in Buggenum is scheduled to start up operations this August, witth first test results to be available in December. The work at the Dutch unit will support further development and implementation at future demonstration plants and commercial concepts, said Vattenfall.
The Buggenum unit will, for example, support the Nuon Magnum project – a planned power plant in the north of the Netherlands, based on a multi-fuel concept that uses gasification technology to generate electricity from gas, coal and biomass.
Three blocks of natural gas combined cycle will be built initially, with a second phase adding coal gasification, co-firing of biomass and pre-combustion capture of CO2 for a flexible fuel setup, according to Vattenfall, which expects the first phase to be operational in 2013. The Buggenum project will enable Vattenfall and Nuon to pre-combustion approach to CCS , as well as oxyfuel and post-combustion technologies.
“The Willem Alexander plant in Buggenum is a 253 MW gasification plant, which makes it an ideal location to test pre-combustion capture of carbon dioxide. Coal is the main fuel, but these days biomass is co-gasified on a large scale,” the power growup commented.
Vattenfall’s CCS programmes encompass a number of test rigs, EU projects and joint efforts at different pilots and research stations around the world. The company has built a 30 MW pilot plant for carbon dioxide capture at the lignite-fired power plant at Schwarze Pumpe, Germany. The plant was inaugurated in 2008, and since then tests are performed to evaluate the technology of Oxyfuel combustion before building a larger scale demonstration plant.
Next step, said vattenfall, will be a full-scale demonstration plant at Jänschwalde in Germany, employing both oxyfuel and post-combustion technologies.
