First power purchase agreement for a commercial-scale CCS plant in the US

The Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP), combining Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) and CO₂ capture and storage has announced the first power purchase agreement for a commercial-scale carbon dioxide capture plant in the US. The largest municipally-owned utility in the USA, CPS Energy, has agreed to buy 200 MW of power a year from TCEP when it starts operations in 2015.

According to the Department of Energy (DOE), the plant will emit less than 10% of the CO₂ produced by a comparable conventional coal plant, and less than 25% of a high-efficiency natural gas plant. The CCS unit is supposed to capture 90% of the CO₂ the plant produces, as well as 99% of SOx, 90% of NOx, and 99% of mercury.

Nearly 2.9 million metric tons of CO₂ are to be captured annually, out of which 83% will be used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and the rest will be utilised to make urea, an organic compound with several industrial applications.

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