SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Summit Power Group’s Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP) will enter into a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the country’s largest municipally owned natural gas and electric utility, CPS Energy, which announced the agreement at a press conference today with San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro.
CPS Energy President & CEO Doyle Beneby stated that the company will purchase 200MW of power from TCEP, a first-of-its-kind integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) 400 MW power/poly-gen plant that will capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide, 99 percent of the sulfur, more than 95 percent of the mercury, and eliminate more than 90 percent of the nitrogen oxides produced by the process – making it overall the cleanest coal-fueled power project ever permitted in Texas.
The power off-take arrangement marks a major milestone for TCEP, which has already marketed its other two major commercial products, urea fertilizer and compressed carbon dioxide for use in enhanced oil recovery in the West Texas Permian Basin, and plans to break ground in Penwell, Texas, outside Odessa by the end of the year, with a startup date in late 2014 or early 2015. TCEP received its final air quality permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) last December with no opposition or requests for a hearing. Summit Power was one of five clean technology companies introduced today by CPS Energy to an audience of San Antonio community and business leaders at the downtown campus of the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). CPS announced partnerships with the companies as part of its New Energy Economy vision and to help offset the mothballing of the utility’s coal-fired J.T. Deely Power Plant by 2018, about 15 years earlier than planned, with clean coal, solar, natural gas, and energy efficiency and conservation.
Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy applauded CPS’s endeavors. “San Antonio is stepping up to lead Texas and our nation into a clean energy future –and proving that investing in innovative technology to protect our health and the environment is also a great way to create jobs,” U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement released at the press conference.
Mayor Julian Castro has made it a priority of his administration to make San Antonio a hub for energy development and a recognized leader in clean energy technology. All five companies participating in Monday’s press conference announced economic development initiatives to support the Mayor’s vision; TCEP will open a customer relations office in San Antonio; partner with UTSA’s Sustainable Energy Research Institute; and bring to UTSA its Carbon Management Advisory Board, an independently funded group of scientists, academicians and environmentalists who will review and verify TCEP’s carbon capture and sequestration protocols.
Stated DOE’s Thomas Sarkus, a Division Director within the Office of Major Demonstrations at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), who attended Monday’s event: “The U.S. Department of Energy applauds CPS Energy for its progressive energy stance that includes voluntarily phasing out old coal plants and replacing them with cleaner, low-carbon technologies such as the Texas Clean Energy Project, a DOE-sponsored, breakthrough, clean-coal project.” TCEP was awarded $450 million by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2010. The award comprised funds from both the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) and the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
“We couldn’t be more delighted to be entering into a long-term purchase agreement with a utility company that truly understands the importance of securing ultra-low carbon coal’s place in the country’s future energy portfolio as long as it is clean, affordable and reliable,” said Eric Redman, President of Summit Power Group. “We have a model project that will change how the world views coal-fueled power and its ability to capture almost all its CO2, and CPS Energy’s involvement makes that possible.”
About Summit
Summit is a 20-year-old company based in Seattle, WA, that has developed more than 7,000 megawatts and billions of dollars worth of U.S. power projects, primarily natural gas-fired and wind energy, with solar power recently added through a photovoltaic (PV) solar joint venture called NorthLight with Norway-based Renewable Energy Corporation (REC). TCEP is Summit’s first project using coal as a feedstock, in this case for a coal gasification process that does not burn coal but instead converts the coal by chemical processes into clean-burning industrial gases and a pure stream of CO2 that is captured and sequestered.
For more information about the Texas Clean Energy Project (www.texascleanenergyproject.com) or Summit Power Group, contact Laura Miller, Summit Power’s Director of Projects, Texas, at 214-763-0600, or email lmiller@summitpower.com.