AEP Mountaineer Fact Sheet: Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Project

Company/Alliance: American Electric Power, Alstom, RWE, NETL, and Battelle Memorial Institute

Location: Mountaineer Station, New Haven, West Virginia, USA

Feedstock: Coal

Process: Pulverized coal boiler combusting high-sulphur, bituminous coal

Size: Phase 1: 30 MW slide slip from the 1,300 MW Mountaineer Station: 0.1 MT/Yr CO2
Phase 2: 235 MW; 1.5 MT/Yr CO2 (90% capture)

Capture Technology: Post-combustion with chilled ammonia

CO2 Fate: Sequestration at 1.5 miles depth in the saline Mount Simon Sandstone

Timing: Phase 1: Start 2009; Scheduled to operate for 18 months (up to 5 years)
Phase 2: 2015 Currently on hold due to unknown climate policy

Motivation/Economics: The project is a combined ten-year effort with the US DOE. The DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy contributed $7.2 million while Alstom and AEP contributed $1.4 million for the initial phases of the project. Geologic investigation of the Mountaineer site cost $4.2 million. The pilot is projected to cost >$100 million

Phase 2: The DOE awarded an additional $334 million in December 2009 for the 235MW scale-up 10 year project (approximately half of the total cost of $668 million). The Global CCS Institute will provide AU$4 million (US$4.01 million) to support the initial engineering and characterization phase.

Comments: AEP has placed the large scale CCS project at Mountaineer power plant on hold due to the current uncertain status of US climate policy and the continued weak economy. The project is on hold until such time that economic and policy conditions create a viable path forward. AEP has advised the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that it is terminating its contract with DOE and will put the project on hold upon completion of the project’s initial phase of front-end engineering and design. DOE had been funding 50 percent of project costs up to $334 million.

The pilot project in West Virginia was planned to operate for 12 to 18 months, starting in 2009. The project tested Alstom's chilled ammonia technology for CO2 capture from flue gases particular to natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants. The 30 MW project came onto production in October 2009. As of December 2010: 21,000 metric tons captured at >90% capture rate; ~4,400 hours of operation; 15,000 metric tons stored (13,500 into AEP-1 Copper Ridge Fm and 1,500 into AEP-2 Rose Run Fm). Process availability is reaching 100% for both capture and storage. Meanwhile, AEP will collaborate with Babcock & Wilcox on developing oxyfuel combustion technology at its 30 MW Clean Environment Development Facility in Alliance, Ohio.

The Mount Simon Sandston is thought to have ideal properties for storing CO2. The target depth is 1.5 miles below the surface where the formation has an estimated capacity for storing about 1.5 MT/Yr. Battelle is the storage contractor. Injection via pipeline system with off-site wellheads.

Project Link: AEP Mountaineer project website

Other Sources and Press Releases:
DOE CCPI project fact sheet 2011 [PDF]
AEP shelves ambitious plan to limit carbon (July 2011)
Battelle successfully completes small-scale carbon storage project (July 2011)
Mountaineer project deemed a success (May 2011)
Financial shortfall highlights absence of carbon price (April 2011)
AEP receives $4M from GCSSI for Mountaineer (February 2011)