The Kemper County Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project is one step closer to full operation following the successful production of syngas from its second gasifier, project owner Mississippi Power said Friday. “This is another exciting step toward commercial operation of Kemper,” Mississippi Power Chairman, President, and CEO Anthony Wilson said in a press release. “Accomplishing this milestone on the second gasifier is key to the project’s completion. We have a tremendous team that is working hard to make the entire Kemper project a clean, safe and reliable energy resource for our customers.”
The plant, designed to be a new-build, integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal-fired power plant, has been producing electricity with natural gas since August 2014. The plant has two custom gasifiers.
Once fully operational, Kemper will use Mississippi lignite, a low-rank brown coal, to produce electricity. It will employ its custom IGCC system and CCS technology to produce electricity from the coal with carbon emissions roughly equal to that of natural gas.
The first of Kemper’s gasifiers began producing syngas in mid-July. It operated on lignite more than 60 percent of the period between mid-July and late-August, at which time it was taken offline for “inspection and what is expected to be minor repairs and maintenance,” according to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The other gasifier was modified to incorporate the changes that operation of the first gasifier revealed to be needed.
The project, which currently is projected to cost $6.8 billion, was initially billed at $2.4 billion and scheduled to reach full operation in May 2014. The plant is now expected to begin full operations by Oct. 31.
“During the coming weeks, the Kemper team will be focused on proceeding toward operation at sustained capacity levels necessary for completion of the activities for the initial operations and testing of the syngas clean-up systems and the production of electricity using syngas,” the release says.
Mississippi Power is a subsidiary of Southern Co. It provides power for over 186,000 customers in 23 counties in southeast Mississippi.