World's First Integrated CCS of Coal-fired Power Plant Emissions Begins

The demonstration project calls for the capture and compression of CO2 from the flue gas of a coal-fired plant by a CO2 capture facility built at Southern Company's Plant Barry in Alabama, and its sequestration in a saline formation at a depth of 3,000-3,400 meters in the Citronelle Dome geologic structure, which is approximately 12 miles west from the plant. The sequestration aspect of the project is being conducted as Phase III of the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program, a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The volume of CO2 injection, which got under way following approval by the Alabama state government, has been progressively expanded and now reached the full-scale target of 500 mtpd. In the project MHI is responsible for basic planning, engineering, core equipment supply, and provision of technology support during the demonstration operation in CO2 recovery and compression.

At Plant Barry, CO2 capture demonstration test has been successfully being conducted since June last year. The CO2 capture facility, which was built jointly by MHI and Southern Company, is the world's largest in scale: 500 mtpd, with CO2 recovery efficiency above 90%. The facility consists primarily of a flue-gas scrubber, flue-gas CO2 capture/re-generation system, CO2 compression machinery, and electrical components. For CO2 recovery the facility adopts the KM CDR Process®, which uses a proprietary KS-1 high-performance solvent for CO2 absorption and desorption that was jointly developed by MHI and the Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. Compared with other CO2 capture technologies, the KM CDR Process uses significantly less energy.

Southern Company is one of the largest energy companies in the U.S., with a generating capacity of more than 42,000 megawatts serving 4.4 million customers in the country's southeast.

MHI leads the industry with a record of having installed 10 natural gas-fired CO2 capture facilities currently in operation, plus one under construction, for chemical plant applications. In the area of CO2 recovery from coal-fired plant flue gas, the company, working in cooperation with the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) and Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. (J-POWER), has already completed small-scale demonstration testing at 10 mtpd and confirmed uninterrupted stable operation.

Through participation in the world's largest-scale CO2 capture project at Plant Barry, MHI intends to show the high-level economic feasibility and reliability of MHI's technology to the world, also in the commercial-scale CO2 capture from coal-fired power plant flue gas, and looks to realize its commercialization.

Note: The KM CDR Process is a registered trademark of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. in Japan, the United States, the European Union (CTM), Norway, Australia and China.