Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
2/6/2015
The National Energy Technology Laboratory is making $38 million funding available for crosscutting projects and nearly $13 million in funding available for advanced combustion systems projects, including oxy-combustion and chemical looping processes, through two funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) issued last week. The purpose of the crosscutting technology FOA “is to enable development of next-generation advanced energy systems,” NETL said, adding, “These technologies will contribute to the goals of high efficiency, near-zero emissions, and effective carbon capture for these systems. These energy systems include advanced combustion, chemical looping, gasification, turbines, fuel cells, gas cleaning and separation technologies, and carbon dioxide separation and capture technologies.”
Areas of interest within the crosscutting FOA include; the development and qualification of high performance structural materials for advanced Fossil Energy power generation cycles; structural materials for flexible power plants; hot gas path sensors for industrial gas turbines; testing of novel control architecture incorporating sensor information in advanced energy systems; development of a Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI) toolset for multiple advanced energy systems; capability enhancements with uncertainty quantification for open source software; and water management and treatment for power plant and CO2 storage operations. Applications for this FOA are due by March 30.
The FOA for advanced combustion systems focuses on oxy-combustion and chemical looping, and is intended to “improve the overall economics for these two pathways ensuring that their performance and cost potential are substantially better than today’s baseline pulverized coal power plant with post-combustion capture,” NETL said. “These projects will also support the scale-up of these technologies by addressing critical technology gaps and improving overall system performance by decreasing unit operation energy requirements,” according to the FOA. Specific areas of interest include; boiler integration for supercritical CO2 (SCO2) power cycles; flue gas purification, latent heat recovery, integrated oxygen production, and optimized heat exchange (radiant or in-bed for CO2-rich environments); and novel concepts for substantially enhancing the overall performance and cost of advanced combustion systems. Applications for this FOA are due by March 13.
