ETI seeks partners for cutting edge waste-to-energy and CCS plants
The government and industry-backed Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has announced that it is seeking tenders from firms keen to trial advanced waste-to-energy and carbon capture and storage CCS) technologies.
The organisation yesterday published a request for proposals outlining its plan to provide up to £13m to support a commercial-scale demonstration project that will use integrated gasification and gas clean-up technologies to generate power from waste materials.
The move came on the same day as the ETI also announced it was planning to offer £5m to a project designed to detect the leakage of carbon dioxide from underground storage sites.
Advocates of gasification technologies, which heat waste materials to extremely high levels in low oxygen environments in order to create a synthetic gas or syngas that can then be burned to create energy, argue that the approach is significantly more efficient than standard waste incineration plants, while also delivering emission reductions and reduced air pollution.
“We have already completed an extensive analysis of the existing energy from waste technologies, as well as the breakdown of typical UK municipal, commercial and industrial waste,” said Dr David Clarke, chief executive of the ETI, in a statement. “From this research we believe that improved technology for the integrated gasification of waste together with gas clean-up and subsequent combustion of this cleaned gas in either a gas reciprocating engine or turbine would provide an effective and efficient solution.”
He added that the ETI’s modelling suggests that a next generation gasification plant could operate at a net efficiency of 25 per cent, a level that “significantly exceeds the performance of current plants in operation”.
The ETI said interested parties had until Thursday June 7 to provide a notification of intention to submit a proposal and until Monday July 2 to submit their detailed proposal.
The organisation added that it expected the full design for the successful proposal to be completed by 2014, with the plant being completed by 2016.
Similarly, companies or academics working on CCS research have until June 29 to submit a proposal for hos they could detect potential carbon leakages.
“EC Directives place an obligation on the operator to assess whether there is leakage from particular sites and, if it is discovered, whether it is potentially damaging to the environment,” said Clarke.
“There is an urgent need to demonstrate the technologies required for carbon capture and storage and appraise potential offshore storage sites in order to design the optimal CCS system. Delivering this monitoring system will be a crucial step in building public and commercial confidence in the acceptability of CCS technology.”
The organisation yesterday published a request for proposals outlining its plan to provide up to £13m to support a commercial-scale demonstration project that will use integrated gasification and gas clean-up technologies to generate power from waste materials.
The move came on the same day as the ETI also announced it was planning to offer £5m to a project designed to detect the leakage of carbon dioxide from underground storage sites.
Advocates of gasification technologies, which heat waste materials to extremely high levels in low oxygen environments in order to create a synthetic gas or syngas that can then be burned to create energy, argue that the approach is significantly more efficient than standard waste incineration plants, while also delivering emission reductions and reduced air pollution.
“We have already completed an extensive analysis of the existing energy from waste technologies, as well as the breakdown of typical UK municipal, commercial and industrial waste,” said Dr David Clarke, chief executive of the ETI, in a statement. “From this research we believe that improved technology for the integrated gasification of waste together with gas clean-up and subsequent combustion of this cleaned gas in either a gas reciprocating engine or turbine would provide an effective and efficient solution.”
He added that the ETI’s modelling suggests that a next generation gasification plant could operate at a net efficiency of 25 per cent, a level that “significantly exceeds the performance of current plants in operation”.
The ETI said interested parties had until Thursday June 7 to provide a notification of intention to submit a proposal and until Monday July 2 to submit their detailed proposal.
The organisation added that it expected the full design for the successful proposal to be completed by 2014, with the plant being completed by 2016.
Similarly, companies or academics working on CCS research have until June 29 to submit a proposal for hos they could detect potential carbon leakages.
“EC Directives place an obligation on the operator to assess whether there is leakage from particular sites and, if it is discovered, whether it is potentially damaging to the environment,” said Clarke.
“There is an urgent need to demonstrate the technologies required for carbon capture and storage and appraise potential offshore storage sites in order to design the optimal CCS system. Delivering this monitoring system will be a crucial step in building public and commercial confidence in the acceptability of CCS technology.”
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