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02.03.2011 17:42
The energy company Enel announced today that inaugurated an innovative pilot plant with carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) at its Federico II power plant in Brindisi. Joining Enel CEO and General Manager Fulvio Conti for the ceremony were the EU Energy Commissioner, Gunther Oettinger, the Italian Minister for Environment, Land and Sea, Stefania Prestigiacomo, the President of the Brindisi Province, Massimo Ferrarese, and the mayor of Brindisi Domenico Mennitti.
The pilot plant in Brindisi is the first of its kind in Italy, one of the first in Europe and it is part of joint activities set forth by the strategic agreement signed with ENI in 2008. It will be able to treat 10,000 cubic meters per hour of fumes from the Federico II coal plant, separating out 2.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per hour, up to a maximum of 8,000 metric tons per year, equivalent to the CO2 absorbed by around 800,000 trees or a 10 Km2 forest. Thanks to innovative Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) technologies, CO2, one of the major greenhouse gases, can be captured from the fumes discharged from fossil fuel plants and, once liquefied, can be transported and stored in a geologically secure site.
Enel CEO and General Manager Fulvio Conti commented, "The completion of this pilot plant in Brindisi is an important step forward in the development of new technologies upon which the world's future energy system will be built. Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration will allow the further use of fossil fuels, drastically eliminating emissions of CO2, which is not in itself a polluting gas but it is thought to be chiefly responsible for the greenhouse effect. It will be, along with renewables and nuclear power, a winning response to the challenge of having steady supplies of environmentally-friendly energy. Enel is a world leader in research and technological development to improve the performance of thermal power plants, which are destined to play an important role for decades to come. In Italy, using a balanced mix of energy from renewables, clean coal, nuclear power and gas, we should be able to cut the electricity bills of households and businesses to bring them in line with those of other European countries.”
The European Union granted Enel 100 million euros in funding through the European Recovery Programme for Energy for its pilot project in Brindisi and for preliminary work on the Porto Tolle plant. In further demonstration of its commitment in this area, Enel is also part to international agreements for developing CCS in China and South Korea. In China, the operational phase of a pilot project involving the installation of a CCS system at the Tongchuan power plant has got under way. The power plant is one of the newest facilities of the Huaneng utility in the Shaanxi coal province. The system under study will be able to capture 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year, which will then be injected into oil fields to facilitate extraction from the wells. In South Korea, on the occasion of the G20 summit in November 2010, Fulvio Conti, CEO and General Manager of Enel, and Kim Ssang-Su, CEO and President of the Korean Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the headquarters of KEPCO in Seoul to foster cooperation in the areas of network systems and technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through CCS initiatives.
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