Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
1/18/13

British utility RWE npower and Cansolv Technologies Inc. have commissioned a CO2 and sulfur dioxide capture pilot plant in Wales, the duo announced this week. Cansolv said Jan. 17 that a demonstration unit at RWE’s Aberthaw Power Station commenced operations and began scrubbing roughly 50 tonnes of CO2 per day from a flue gas slipstream while capturing nearly all of the SO2 generated from the 3MWe pilot facility. The long-delayed project will run up to two years and test two Cansolv solvents, including its DC-103 amine compound that will soon be deployed at a far larger scale at Sask Power’s Boundary Dam plant currently under construction in southeast Saskatchewan, Canada, according to Cansolv Sales Manager Devin Shaw. The Aberthaw facility will also test a newer solvent being developed by Cansolv, he added. “This is the ultimate test machine—it’s huge, it’s got very tight controls and analytical equipment everywhere, so it’s going to be fantastic for validating our new solvents at large scale,” Shaw said.

Cansolv billed the facility as the world’s first integrated CO2 and SO2 capture plant. “This is a significant milestone for Cansolv as it’s a clear demonstration of our innovative and cutting-edge carbon capture technology,” Cansolv President Philippe Gauthier said in a statement. The pilot facility will also help Cansolv and RWE test the technology’s ability to quickly start up or ramp down, required for a unit to run competitively under the U.K.’s power generation system, according to Shaw. “That reality creates an interesting challenge for a technology that really just likes to run in a steady state,” he said. “So we want to prove that our technology is adoptable.” Cansolv said it will also work with RWE and the U.K.’s Environment Agency to track the environmental impact of the amine capture technologies it is testing at the facility.

Both Companies Have History with CO2 Capture

Both RWE and Cansolv have a history with pursuing CO2 capture. RWE was an early investor in the technology, but its two previous major projects were shelved or terminated in recent years. A 450 MW integrated gasification combined cycle plant it proposed in western Germany with the engineering company Linde Group and chemical giant BASF was put on hold due to the country’s inability at the time to pass a legal and regulatory framework for CO2 storage. RWE was also partnered with American Electric Power and Alstom for its Mountaineer post-combustion CCS project in West Virginia before it was cancelled in 2011 due to the lack of a federal climate policy in the U.S.

Meanwhile, in addition to Boundary Dam, Cansolv is involved with the Peterhead natural gas capture project in the U.K. along with its parent company Shell and the utility SSE. That project will retrofit capture technology onto an existing natural gas combined cycle turbine in northeast Scotland. The U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change named the 385 MW project to its shortlist of finalists to receive money from its CCS funding competition last fall. Shaw said Cansolv is also involved with another project under development in South Africa.