Foster Wheeler to supply new kit for Spanish CCS project
8 Mar 2010
London – Foster Wheeler (FW) has been awarded a contract by Fundación Ciudad de la Energía (CIUDEN), an institution created by the Spanish Government, for the design and supply of a circulating fluidized-bed (CFB) unit for testing FW’s Flexi-Burn carbon capturing CFB technology.
This unit will be part of CIUDEN’s integrated carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology development plant (TDP), near Endesa’s Compostilla power plant in Ponferrada. It is due to be operational by H2/11 with testing programs to follow shortly thereafter. FW will design and supply the 30 MWth Flexi-Burn CFB test unit and some auxiliary equipment and provide site advisory services for the project.
Flexi-Burn is FW’s version of carbon capture technology based on oxygen combustion for coal plants. Unlike, pre-combustion IGCC plants or post-combustion technologies with amine CO2 scrubbers placed behind conventional coal boilers, oxygen combustion technologies allow the boiler to produce a CO2 rich flue gas, thus reducing the need for expensive and energy-intensive CO2 gas separation equipment.
The CIUDEN unit will be designed to test burn a wide range of domestic (anthracite) and imported coals, as well as biomass. One of the aims of the incorporation of this unit into the TDP is to validate FW’s Flexi-BurnTM CFB technology at the required scale before proceeding to a possible full-scale demonstration plant.
