Siemens Energy to supply coal gasification technology

Siemens Energy, Inc. has been chosen to provide the coal gasification technology for the Taylorville Energy Center (TEC), the 730-megawatt advanced clean coal generating plant being developed near Taylorville, Illinois.

The (TEC) will be one of the nation’s first commercial-scale, coal gasification plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) capability.

Tenaska, managing partner for the $3.5 billion project, has signed equipment contracts and licensing agreements with Siemens for four gasifiers that will convert Illinois coal into substitute natural gas. The gas will be used for electricity generation or fed into the interstate natural gas pipeline system.

TEC’s integrated gasification combined-cycle technology also will capture and provide storage for at least 50 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that would otherwise enter the atmosphere.

Said Michael Suess, CEO of the fossil power generation division of Siemens Energy, “By capturing and storing at least 50 percent of the CO2 it produces, TEC will have emissions comparable to a natural gas-fueled plant.”

TEC is in advanced development, with the front end engineering and design (FEED) work required by the Illinois Clean Coal Portfolio Standard law under way. The FEED is expected to include more than 100,000 work hours by the time its facility cost report is presented to the Illinois Commerce Commission in early 2010. TEC is projected to be completed and in operation in 2014.

The United States Department of Energy has supported the TEC by choosing Tenaska to proceed into the term sheet negotiation phase under the DOE Loan Guarantee Program. Upon completion of due diligence and negotiation of the termsheet and guarantee documentation, the Taylorville project expects to receive a federal government guarantee of its debt of up to $2.579 billion, depending on the final project costs and capital structure, which will greatly reduce financing costs.