Groundbreaking year for CO2 Technology Centre Mongstad 07 May 2013

One year on from its inauguration, CO2 Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM) has announced achievements that it believes are crucial to de-risking carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects.

The main function of TCM's first stage of operation has been to test solvents used to absorb CO2 from fossil fuel exhaust gases.

Two technology demonstrations have been overlaid onto TCM's utility infrastructure, which provides access to 100,000 tonnes per year of simulated coal, oil and gas-fired CO2 flue gases from a gas-fired combined heat and power plant (CHP) and a refinery cracker.

TCM managing director Frank Ellingsen says that since test activity started in July 2012 the facility – which has the only industrial-scale test centre for gas fired emissions globally – has been in operation for more than 5,000 hours.

TCM is currently testing Aker Solutions' amine technology and Alstom Chilled Ammonia technology.

"The last year has brought new levels of certainty to expected capital expenditure and ongoing costs of CCS by establishing the viability of capture processes," states Ellingsen.

"These advancements have reduced the knowledge gap of CCS technological development," he continues.

"It's very exciting to see that, off the back of these achievements, world-leading technologists are lining up to take advantage of the ongoing programme."

"Our advanced carbon capture technology is being demonstrated every day at industrial scale with a high plant uptime and at a capture rate of the predefined 85—90%," comments Henning Østvig, senior vice president in Aker Solutions.

"[The] emission monitoring campaigns at TCM have shown excellent results, which was one of the most important issues to be demonstrated before scaling up the technology to full-scale carbon capture at Mongstad."

And Eric Staurset, president of Alstom Norway, adds: "We are proud to be part of the world's most advanced test centre for development of CO2 capture technologies. Our experiences so far with our Chilled Ammonia Process at Mongstad have confirmed our view of the technology as a viable and very competitive technology."

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
Aker Solutions
GE

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