Mississippi Power has announced it has generated electricity in the second gasifier at the Kemper County energy facility by synthesis gas, or syngas, from lignite. Last month, the company announced electricity had been generated in the first of the facility’s two gasifiers.
“This is a substantial step forward for the project,” said Mississippi Power chairman, president and CEO Anthony L. Wilson. “We are now closer to integrating all of the systems at the facility to deliver on our mission to provide clean, reliable energy for our customers.”
The company announced in October it was completing maintenance on the first gasifier at the plant, which followed six weeks of successful syngas production including generation of the plant’s first electricity using syngas.
The remaining major milestones for the IGCC include successful carbon capture and integration of all systems necessary for both combustion turbines to simultaneously generate electricity with syngas, the company said. The expected date for the plant to be placed in service is December 31.
Once fully operational, the Kemper IGCC plant will produce electricity with a syngas-only net output capability of 524 MW and with a peak net output capability of 582 MW. The pilot project will be a first-of-its-kind electricity plant to employ gasification and carbon capture technologies at industrial scale.
Issues with the technology of syngas production had led the company to repeatedly postpone the in-service date of project – causing significant cost overruns. The power plant portion produced electricity for Mississippi Power customer since August 2014, yet difficulties at the plants “front end” – notably with the production of syngas, using the transport integrated gasification technology or TRIG – had delayed the overall start-up.
In August, the operator revised its cost estimate upwards to include an additional $43 million. These additional cost overruns are related to the schedule extension and start-up activities; total costs have risen to over $6.8 billion.