Abby L. Harvey
GHG Daily
1/11/2016
The full opening of the much-delayed Kemper County Energy Facility might be pushed back yet again, according to site owner Mississippi Power. The plant, a new-build post-combustion carbon capture and storage project under development near the city of Meridian, was initially slated to reach full operation in 2013. The company announced in October that full operation was expected late in the first half of this year. However, Mississippi Power’s latest filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says that date is being “evaluated.”
The document states that an updated timeline will be published in the company’s next SEC filing, to be submitted in early February. The need for evaluation of the construction and start-up schedule is “the result of challenges in ongoing start-up and commissioning activities, including repairs and modifications to the refractory lining inside the gasifiers, as well as operational readiness,” the document says.
The project is currently in an operational testing phase, Mississippi Power spokesman Bill Snyder told GHG Daily this week by email. “While these tests have confirmed the design of these first-of-a-kind systems, we have also identified some modifications, rework and needed repairs that will be implemented and re-tested before these systems can be placed in service. This is not unexpected for systems being commercialized for the first time,” Snyder said.
The plant, once completed, will use Mississippi lignite, a low-rank brown coal, to produce electricity. It will employ a custom integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) system and carbon capture and storage technology to produce electricity from the coal with carbon emissions roughly equal to that of natural gas. The project’s captured CO2 will be used for enhanced oil recovery.
Extending the project’s timeline beyond the first half of the year could prove costly for the company, to the tune of $25 million to $30 million a month, according to the document. This total “includes maintaining necessary levels of start-up labor, materials, and fuel, as well as operational resources required to execute start-up and commissioning activities.”
The new filing also lists an expense estimate increase of $11.3 million, bringing the plant’s total estimated price tag to $6.49 billion, far above its initially proposed $2.4 billion. Mississippi Power attributed the overage to “some modifications, rework and needed repairs on a few systems.”
