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Photo: Vattenfall
The first demonstration plant on Oxyfuel capture technology is investigated at Jänschwalde in Germany. The scale-up from the size of the 30 MW pilot plant at Schwarze Pumpe is the last development step before the technology could be commercially introduced. The new Oxyfuel boiler at Jänschwalde would be of 650 MW thermal (around 250 MW electric), which is about 20 times more than Vattenfall's 30 MW pilot plant under construction and compares to today’s largest Oxyfuel test rigs of 0.5 MW. With this milestone, Vattenfall is taking another step towards development of commercial CCS concepts. Also Postcombustion capture technology will be demonstrated at Jänschwalde.
The existing lignite fired 3000 MWe power plant at Jänschwalde was taken into operation in the 1980-ies and was modernised in the 1990's. At each of the six blocks two 250 MW boilers produce steam to one joint steam turbine. This makes the site excellent for conversion into a double CCS demonstration plant. One new 250 Oxyfuel boiler will be built to replace one of the existing boilers. The other existing boiler in the block will be retrofitted with a Postcombustion capture unit and this unit would be possible to operate also without the capture function. All together, this concept would give Vattenfall full flexibility to operate the block with almost retained electricity generation and at the same time be able to make changes to the capture units. With this double-demo-project, CO2 lean electricity generated with lignite can be delivered to the grid starting in 2015. Other advantages of the site of Jänschwalde are that the necessary space for extra equipment is available and all existing infrastructure can be used. Furthermore, the existing opencast mines guarantee the lignite supply. Several on-shore storage options have already been investigated and also possible routes for the pipelines in which the captured CO2 will be transported to the final storage. Regarding the storage, all options are still open and further investigated in detail. After the highest priority of meeting safety criteria focus is also on identifying the cases with most promising economy and total storage capacity. The feasibility studies for the Demonstration plant in Jänschwalde will begin in mid 2008. From early 2009 the planning and applications for permits will be the centre of activities. The construction of the plant is scheduled to start in 2011. Together with Vattenfall’s demonstration plant on Postcombustion capture technology at Aalborg in Denmark and the pilot plant at Schwarze Pumpe, the Jänschwalde demonstration plant will take the development of CCS several steps closer a commercial breakthrough.
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