Another month, another cost estimate increase at Mississippi Power’s Kemper County Energy Facility. The latest increase, this time $9 million, brings the project’s total estimated cost to $6.76 billion. The facility was originally billed at $2.4 billion. The newest overage, announced in the company’s monthly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is due to “operational readiness and challenges in start-up and commissioning activities.”
Regardless of the ever-increasing cost projection, the company holds that the plant will reach full operation by Sept. 30.
The project, a new-build, post-combustion CCS facility near the city of Meridian, has been producing energy with natural gas since August 2014. Once fully operational, the plant will use Mississippi lignite, a low-rank brown coal, to produce electricity. It will employ a custom integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) system and CCS technology to produce carbon emissions roughly equal to that of natural gas. The CCS and IGCC portions of the plant are not yet online.
It hasn’t been all bad news recently for the project. Mississippi Power announced last month that facility has begun producing syngas from lignite coal.
Extending the in-service date beyond Aug. 31 is estimated to result in additional costs of roughly $25 million to $35 million per month to cover labor, materials, fuel, and “operational resources” needed for startup and commissioning, according to the filing.
