The California Energy Commission will meet March 7 to decide if the Hydrogen Energy California carbon capture and storage project’s application for certification (AFC) will be reinstated or terminated. Specifically, the commission will address a motion filed by project developer SCS Energy to reinstate the expired AFC and a motion by the Energy Commission Staff to terminate the application.
“The Committee asks that the parties be prepared to offer oral argument on the Motions and to provide factual support, such as testimony, documents, or other evidence, for any assertions the parties are relying upon to support their positions in this matter. In addition, the Committee may ask the parties for information regarding the present status of the case,” the commission wrote in the hearing announcement.
SCS Energy, in mid-July, received a six-month extension to obtain its certification, essentially suspending the project. That extension has now expired.
The HECA project, as initially planned, would be a new-build, pre-combustion, 390-megawatt integrated gasification combined cycle CCUS project. Certification by the CEC is necessary for the project to be licensed under the California Environmental Quality Act.
The project has suffered delays related to the offtake of its captured CO2. SCS had more than two years ago been preparing to sign an offtake agreement with Occidental Petroleum under which the CO2 would have been used for enhanced oil recovery. However, in February 2014, Occidental announced the spinoff of its California operations. At that time, it appeared the newly formed California Resources Corp. would continue to work with HECA to develop an agreement, but those discussions have fallen off.
The company has now proposed a storage-only plan for its captured CO2. HECA has been working with scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as well as the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB), to develop a such a storage option.
