There is no question IGCC is a fully commercial technology with variety of providers and a widely distributed, well-established, world-wide installed base Locations and details of the 17 IGCC plants built since 1984 are summarized below on the World IGCC Map and in the World IGCC Summary chart, respectively. There has been over 4,450 MWe of IGCC capacity experience, using five gasification technology providers and four gas turbine providers with eleven different gas turbine models. Nine IGCC’s collectively produce over 2,000,000 lbs/hr of cogenerated steam, 181 mmscfd of co-produced hydrogen and lesser amounts of methanol.
In Europe, there are over 2,730 MWe of installed capacity at nine plants. Clearly, the installed capacity shows Europe is the IGCC leader by a wide margin. Regarding the installed plants, several of these plants experienced initial startup delays; these issues have been resolved, and all but one plant is currently demonstrating very high reliability. Three plants – apiEnergia, ISAB and SARLUX - have been limited recourse, or project, financed, and also have limited price supports for the electricity sales until 2007-2008. The SVZ IGCC has been shutdown for business reasons, but is now in negotiations to restart and expand.
In Asia, there are over 604 MWe of installed capacity at two plants. The Negishi plant, developed after winning a competitive bid for electrical supply into Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) during 1997, has performed well since startup. This plant has no government subsidies. The TEPCO power purchase agreement had substantial penalties for late start-up, and Negishi met this challenge with a focus on project execution including an appropriate schedule. We note the NOX limits for this plant are 2 ppm, as it is located in a municipal area.
In North America, there has been a total experience base of 1,124 MWe at six plants; today’s installed capacity is 829 MWe at four plants. Although the USA has three medium scale (150-325 MWe) IGCC plants, two of the current plants are not running well (Delaware and Wabash – each for different reasons), and only the Polk Plant appears to be reaching its goals. In fact, the Polk Plant leadership team advises: (1) by properly staging its maintenance intervals, their IGCC availability is as good as, or better than, any other coal plant in the USA; and (2) a spare gasifier is not justified or necessary. Polk had an excellent operational record during 2004, however, this success has been followed by a 60 day outage during early 2005 for gas turbine repairs.
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