NRG Energy to start up Texas carbon capture plant by 2016

NRG Energy is planning to start operations at a new carbon capture project at its WA Parish Texas coal facility late next year, according to a Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Installed on a U.S. coal plant, the project is being developed jointly by NRG and JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration. The carbon capture facility is expected to trap about 90% of carbon dioxide from a 240 MW slipstream of flue gas, and will use or sequester 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gasses each year.

NRG said it is likely to complete the carbon capture project at the WA Parish coal facility in Texas in a year’s time. The company sold half of the development to JX Nippon last year after entering into a fixed-price agreement to build and operate the carbon capture facility with a consortium of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America and TIC (The Industrial Company).

The carbon capture facility is financed by up to $167 million from a U.S. Department of Energy grant, $250 million in loans provided by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Mizuho Bank, Ltd.; and about $300 million each in equity contributions from NRG and JX Nippon.

According to NRG, the facility “will be the largest post-combustion, carbon capture project installed on an existing coal-fueled power plant and the first commercial scale in the U.S.”

In its quarterly filing, the company told the SEC it is “responding to a consumer-driven change to the U.S. energy industry by offering cleaner, smarter and ultimately more portable energy.” NRG owns about 50,000 MW of generation.