Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering has received an order for compact CO2 capture system from Taihei Dengyo Kaisha Ltd, a provider of plant construction, maintenance and auxiliary services, for incorporation into a biomass power plant. The system offers a capture capacity of 0.3 metric tons per day. It is the first use of the system in a commercial plant.
Taihei Dengyo is targeting establishment of carbon-negative solutions from carbon-neutral system, to help realise a ‘circular’ energy economy in society. The company seeks to achieve this shift through separation, capture and initial storage of the CO2 emitted by biomass power plants, followed by use of the stored carbon to grow plants, etc. Introduction of the newly contracted CO2 capture system is part of that initiative. It is to be integrated into a 7 MW class biomass power plant operated by Taihei Dengyo in Seifu Shinto, an urban complex within Hiroshima City.
The system is based on a test plant manufactured to verify the impact of applying the new CO2 capture system to a biomass flue gas source, which made early commercialisation possible. The base system is a pilot facility used in the ‘bioenergy with carbon capture and storage’ (BECCS) project conducted at a biomass power plant owned by Drax Group, in the United Kingdom. The basic configuration has been upgraded with the addition of automated operation and other functions for the commercialisation.
The system on order is said to be easily installed, requires an installation space of modest size – only 5 m by 2 m – and can be transported from the factory by road. It features a modular design.
Going forward, the system design will be expanded to enable carbon capture from diverse emission sources worldwide, and eventually MHIENG expects to provide operational support services using its proprietary remote monitoring system.
The CO2 capture technology adopted in the new system is the KM CDR Process, jointly developed by MHIENG and Kansai Electric Power Co, KEPCO, which employs the high-performance ‘KS-1 amine solvent. MHIENG has delivered a total of 13 commercial plants using the KM CDR Process™ at locations worldwide, and two more plants are currently under construction.
