US Mississippi Power has postponed the full coming in operation of its Kemper County power plant to the end of February 2017.
The company had previously said it was expecting it to come in service in January 2017.
The updated schedule “reflects an approximate one-week outage necessary to repair and make modifications to further improve the plant’s ability to achieve sustained operations sufficient to support placing the plant in service for customers” Missisippi power said in a statement.
Due to the delay, Mississippi Power has revised up its cost estimate by $51 million, on top of the expected $6.8 billion total for the project.
“These increased costs will be paid by Southern Company and Mississippi Power, not by Mississippi Power customers” the company said.
The company said it is continuing “final start-up activities at the project” having achieved integrated operation of both gasifiers, including the production of electricity from syngas in both combustion turbines on January 29. “This is the facility’s most significant milestone to-date” it said.
Mississippi Power also said that “as a result of a revised estimate of ongoing operating costs for the project and a decrease in the most recent forecasting of long-term projected natural gas costs” it is updating its economic viability analysis of the project. This analysis is expected to be complete before the end of February 2017.
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 customers since August 2014, however issues with the production of syngas have delayed the overall start-up.