US agency to fund supercritical coal research

The US Department of Energy has given a $9mn grant to Thar Energy for research aiming to find more cost-effective ways of applying supercritical power generation technologies.

The project is part of a National Energy Technology Laboratory program to help achieve commercially viable technologies using CO2 in turbines where water steam normally is used. Thar Energy's research will focus on improving heat exchange devices called recuperators, which help recover waste heat.

The federal agency has funded five other projects researching supercritical CO2 technologies, which it says can be more efficient than steam-based power generation.

Construction of new coal-fired power plants has slowed significantly in the US as the industry prepares to comply with tighter Environmental Protection Agency standards. Those rules have also prompted generators to retire the oldest part of the coal fleet.

But coal generation should continue to account for a sizeable chunk of the US electricity supply.

Supercritical power cycles are crucial for helping meet federal standards for new, modified and reconstructed power plants, which require new coal-fired units to emit no more than 1,400lb CO2/MWh on a gross output level. The standards were released yesterday.

EPA estimates a new supercritical pulverized coal-fired plant could meet the emissions limits by capturing 16-23pc of its CO2, depending on the coal type.

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