E.ON and Siemens are starting up a pilot CO2 capture facility at the E.ON Staudinger power plant in Grosskrotzenburg near Hanau. The two companies said that they are thus pushing further ahead with the development of a process geared toward climate-friendly coal-based power generation.
A lab-proven process is to be employed under real operating conditions at the power plant’s hard-coal-fired Staudinger Unit 5. The pilot plant will be operated with part of the flue gas from Unit 5.
Both the companies plan to run the facility until the end of 2010. The results achieved and the operating performance of the pilot plant will serve as the basis for large-scale demonstration of the technology, which is scheduled to start operation in the middle of the next decade, said the companies.
Michael Suess, CEO of fossil power generation division of Siemens Energy, said: “The challenge is to attain a significant reduction in the CO2 emissions associated with the combustion of fossil fuels. In this context CO2 capture and storage technologies will be of great importance.
“These technologies are available but they have to be tested for deployment in large plants, developed further and brought to market readiness. The pilot facility in the Staudinger power plant marks a decisive step forward.”
Bernhard Fischer, chief technology officer of E.ON and member of the management board of E.ON Energie, said: “As a major contribution toward climate protection, E.ON is planning industrial-scale CO2 capture and storage for coal-fired power plants starting in 2020. Operation of this new plant together with Siemens as part of our pilot fleet is an important step in this direction.”
The project is being sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Economics under the terms of the COORETEC Initiative. It is part of the federal government’s fifth Energy Research Program ‘Innovation and New Energy Technologies’ and promotes research and development in the field of low-CO2 power plant technologies.
The companies said that with the post-combustion capture process developed by Siemens, more than 90% of the CO2 is removed from a power plant’s flue gas using special cleaning agents. In the CCS pilot facility at the Staudinger power plant, the cleaning agent’s long-term chemical stability and the efficiency of the process are now being put to the test under real power plant conditions.