|
|
| |
| Porto Tolle Fact Sheet: Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Project |
|
 |
|
Company/Alliance: Enel, Aker Clean Carbon
Location: Porto Tolle, Italy
Feedstock: Coal
Size: 660 MW (one boiler retrofit); 1.5 MT/Yr
Capture Technology: Post-combustion
CO2 Fate: Nearby offshore saline formation in Adriatic Sea
Timing: Construction (2011); Start (2015) Probable delay after environmental permit approval revoked by Italian high court |
|
| Motivation/Economics: Awarded €100 million from EU government in December 2009 as part of government economic recovery act. Total project cost €2.5 billion ($3.6 billion). ENEL will receive a total of about €400 million from the EU toward the project. |
|
Comments: On May 17, 2011, Italy's top administrative court, Italy's State Council, annulled the Environmental Ministry's decree approving the Enel's Porto Tolle project. The decision came as a surprise to Enel who had initially received the approval from the Environment Ministry in July 2009 after 6 years of trying to obtain the approval. The court's decision to cancel the coal fired power plant was based on environmental grounds following complaints from green groups and local industry. Enel, who has already invested about 70% of the total investment, has decided to try and by-pass the ruling by using oil instead of coal to fire the power plant. This decision depends on new laws which are due to be approved in March 2012. If approved Enel can start construction on the power plant in 2012.
Enel is currently developing a small-scale pilot project at the Brindisi power station in order to test CCS capture before application to the full-scale demonstration project at Porto Tolle. |
|
|
|
| Carbon Capture and Storage - Technology |
|
|
Capture and geological storage of CO2 from flue gases emitted by conventional fossil fuel plants
For years Enel has been active in CCS research, promoting the development of pilot plants to test this technology.
With this aim, early in 2010, a pilot plant to test the post-combustion CO2 capture will enter into service.
In the meantime, the world’s first pure hydrogen fuelled power plant has been built at Enel’s Fusina power station. It allows to demonstrate the feasibility of using the hydrogen produced through coal gasification to produce power with zero CO2 emissions. |
|
|
| Post-combustion capture & storage demonstration project |
|
| |
Post-combustion capture technology will be crucial in reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fuelled plants. Essentially, a system must be added at the end of the existing flue-gases treatment process, which separates, concentrates and prepares CO2 for transportation and geological storage.
|
|
|
|
|
The challenge is to detect the best process for treating a large amount of flue-gases (around 3 million CO2 tons per year for a 660 MW coal unit), integrating it to the facility so as to limit performance loss.
Enel is developing a small-scale pilot project at the Brindisi power station. The results of the tests to be performed using the pilot plant, will be used to develop a full-scale demonstration project at the new Porto Tolle clean coal power station. The project has been selected by the European Commission within the European Economic Plan for Recovery as one of the projects that will be financed.The strategic goal is to have the demonstration plant in operation starting from 2015
|
|
| The world's first hydrogen-fuelled power plant |
|
The world's first industrial-scale power plant to be fully fed by hydrogen has been built in the Porto Marghera area, next to the Enel plant of Fusina. The experimental plant is a combined cycle in which a 12 MW hydrogen-fuelled turbo gas is well integrated with the existing coal-fuelled plant.
The fully integration with the existing power plant allows to further increase the efficiency of the plant thus reaching 41,6% as well as to increase the power produced burning the hydrogen that will reach about 16 MWe.
|
|
|
Enel's policy regarding clean coal technologies is based on three main guidelines which allow a drastic emission reduction |
|
|
| An adequate and safe fuel management |
|
Coal handling and storage takes place in fully enclosed, depressurized and automated structures that avoid any external dust dispersion.
The coal, which is shipped to the plant by ship, is removed from the hold through an enclosed conveyor belt that conveys it directly to dome-covered deposits, completely sealed and where there is no dust dispersion. The combustion ashes that are extracted by filter sleeves are then placed in silos and subsequenlty transferred - again with an automated sealed system - into ship holds, to be taken where they are going to be used. All this ash is used again as raw material in cement production and as inert material in concrete production.
|
|
|
| Improved boiler efficiency |
|
The Ultra Supercritical (USC) technology that is used to pulverize coal causes steam temperature to rise over 600°C and the pressure up to 320 bar. Process parameters are made to reach the technical limits allowed by available technologies, so that the resulting improved efficiency will also bring about significant fuel and emission saving with the same energy production. |
|
|
| Marked reduction of polluting emissions |
|
Next generation bag filters that are used allow a highly efficient particulate removal - around 99.9% matter, thus stopping environmental dust dispersion.
New highly-efficient catalytic flue-gases denitrification systems, based on a chemical reaction between NOx, ammonia and oxygen with "selective catalysers", are used to abate nitric oxides (NOx). This process ensures an 85% reduction efficiency. Advanced desulphurization systems, based on limestone and gypsum, are used to abate sulphur oxides(SOx, with a 95% efficiency.
|
|
|
| Kingsnorth hard coal power station with CCS |
|
E.ON is still planning to build a new supercritical coal-fired power plant with CCS at Kingsnorth. It will be located at E.ON UK's Kingsnorth power station and will emit 10 percent less CO2 than an older plant of its size. As with all of our new coal-fired plants, this one is being built capture ready. The site is close to the North Sea, which has huge potential for underground carbon storage. |
|
|
|
On July 2008 the first of three groups of Torrevaldaliga Nord power plant entered into service.
The plant will be capable of meeting 50% of Lazio region's electricity needs, equivalent to around 4% of the national consumption. The plant, which uses the most advanced available technologies,grants a better performance compared to other similar plants and reduces significantly environmental impact.
Compared with the previous oil-fuelled plant, all emissions will be strongly reduced: nitrogen oxides will go down by 61%, while dusts and sulphur oxide will be cut by 88% (50% beneath the strict European regulatory limits set for health and environmental protection).
Furthermore, coal transportation and circulation systems are completely sealed: this fuel never be exposed to the air. The total investment amounts to around 2 billion Euros. The construction of the plant involved 3,500 workers (and 450 Enel technicians), for a total of 20 million hours worked.
The plant, with a total capacity of 1,980 MW, consists of 3 groups, one less than the previous oil-fuelled plant. This size reduction will also abate carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions by 18%.
|
|
|
