EU funding for FW/ENDESA/CIUDEN carbon capture project
26 May 2010
Zug, Switzerland – Foster Wheeler, ENDESA and the Spanish Foundation, Fundación Ciudad de la Energía (CIUDEN) have signed a grant agreement with the European Commission (EC) for a carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology development in Spain. The 300 MWe oxy-combustion power plant is to receive Euro180m of EU funding under the EC’s European Energy Program for Recovery (EERP).
This is one of six European CCS projects selected for funding under the EERP and is unique in that it is the only such project to employ circulating fluidised-bed (CFB) technology. The project aims to demonstrate all aspects of a commercial scale supercritical oxy-combustion CFB power plant with CO2 capture, transport and storage in an underground saline aquifer for a wide range of domestic and imported coals, petroleum cokes and biomass.
ENDESA’s Compostilla plant site has been identified as the location for this full-scale demonstration plant, based on preliminary positive geological surveys of nearby saline aquifers for storing the plant’s CO2, and the ability to utilise the infrastructure at the existing coal-powered plant.
FW’s Finnish and Spanish subsidiaries within its Global Power Group have teamed with ENDESA Generación, the largest Spanish utility, and CIUDEN to support the first phase of this Spanish CCS project, including the validation of the plant’s design with a 30 MWth Foster Wheeler CFB steam generator incorporated in CIUDEN’s integrated CCS Technology Development Plant (TDP) currently under construction in Spain.
The coal-fired CCS plant will employ FW’s Flexi-Burn CFB technology, which can operate either in a conventional or a carbon capture mode.
In a conventional mode, the unit is air-fired. However, when operating in the carbon capture mode, the CFB combustion process is supported by a mixture of oxygen and recycled flue gas. This results in producing a CO2-rich flue gas containing over 91% CO2 (in the dry flue gas), which dramatically reduces the need for expensive and energy intensive CO2 separation equipment.
CIUDEN is a technological research institution created by the Spanish Government in 2006. Its main objectives are the R&D and demonstration of CCS and advanced CCT through the design and operation of a large-scale integrated TDP units, plus experimental geological storage of CO2 in saline aquifers.
ENDESA is a global electricity player with a large, diversified and balanced asset base. It is the leading Spanish electric utility and the biggest private electricity multinational in Latin America.
