Southern Company to expand focus of National Carbon Capture Center

Published on May 22, 2020 by Dave Kovaleski


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The Southern Company is working with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to expand the focus for the National Carbon Capture Center.

The center, which is managed by the Southern Company, will soon include testing of carbon dioxide (CO2) utilization and direct air capture (DAC) technologies. Also, the center will broaden its testing and evaluation of carbon capture technologies for natural gas power generation.

“We are excited to begin making formal arrangements to apply the technical expertise of the National Carbon Capture Center to the challenges of CO2 utilization and direct air capture,” Dr. Mark Berry, Southern Company Services vice president of research and development, said. “And with its new infrastructure, the center is now the first research and development (R&D) facility in the U.S. to offer comprehensive testing of carbon capture technologies for natural gas power plants.”

The National Carbon Capture Center, located in Wilsonville, Ala., has completed more than 110,000 hours of testing for developers from the United States and six other countries. The testing of over 60 technologies has already reduced the anticipated cost of carbon capture from fossil generation by more than one-third. Further cost reductions are expected as the facility more fully explores carbon capture solutions for natural gas power generation.

“For more than a decade, the National Carbon Capture Center has conducted research in partnership with DOE’s Office of Clean Coal and Carbon Management on capturing carbon emissions from coal-based flue gas,” center Director John Northington said. “Our team is pleased to leverage that knowledge to expand our testing of carbon capture for natural gas-fueled systems. We also look forward to updating our scope of work with DOE to move emerging CO2 utilization and DAC technologies from basic research toward pilot-scale and larger demonstrations.”

In 2018, Southern Company was the first electric and natural gas utility company to set a low- to no-carbon goal for its system. It now expects to achieve a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as early as 2025.

“Southern Company is actively engaged in R&D that seeks to facilitate the transition to a net-zero future by delivering technologies that reduce and eliminate CO2 emissions while also increasing customer value and providing affordable energy,” Berry said. “While our efforts in carbon capture, use and storage will continue to address decarbonizing fossil-based generation, we are also exploring technology solutions for the use of CO2, as well as natural systems to remove and sequester carbon from the atmosphere.”