FuelCell Energy Announces Carbon Capture Solution for Canadian Oil Sands
November 17 2016 - 4:05PM
FuelCell Energy (Nasdaq:FCEL), a global leader in the design,
manufacture, operation and service of ultra‐clean, efficient and
reliable fuel cell power plants, announced a contract with Alberta
Innovates for an engineering study on a fuel cell carbon capture
application at a Husky Energy-owned heavy oil thermal facility near
Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, Canada. A second potential site,
the Scotford bitumen upgrading facility near Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada, will also be evaluated as part of the engineering study.
The upgrader is part of the Shell-operated Athabasca Oil Sands
Project (ASOP), a joint venture between Shell Canada Energy (60%),
Chevron Canada Corporation (20%) and Marathon Oil Canada
Corporation (20%). Under the contract, FuelCell Energy will
develop and prove the application for a carbon capture configured
megawatt-class fuel cell power plant to simultaneously concentrate
and capture carbon while producing ultra-clean power. Alberta
Innovates will lead the project as part of a consortium effort with
Husky Energy and MEG Energy as well as Canada’s Oil Sands
Innovation Alliance (COSIA) members BP, Canadian Natural Resources
Limited, Cenovus Energy, Devon Canada Corporation, Shell, and
Suncor. Completion of the study may then lead to the installation
of the megawatt-scale fuel cell carbon capture system, supported by
the oil sands industry.
“We are dedicated to increasing the value of Alberta’s energy
resources by implementing low-carbon technologies that improve the
environmental profile and production efficiency of Alberta’s oil
sands,” said Dr. Zhihong (John) Zhou, Vice President, Clean Energy,
Alberta Innovates. “This fuel cell carbon capture solution
can check all three of these boxes, and demonstrates our commitment
to achieving our goals.”
“The Canadian oil sands are a key near-term market for carbon
capture and we are pleased to provide a potential solution to
enhance these oil sands operations with affordable, efficient and
clean carbon capture via fuel cells,” said Chip Bottone, Chief
Executive Officer, FuelCell Energy, Inc. “We look forward to
joining forces with Alberta Innovates to prove this game-changing
application and work towards demonstrating the system at
commercial-scale for an oil sands application.”
The study will focus on how a fuel cell power plant can separate
and capture CO2 from both the Husky Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage
(SAGD) heavy oil thermal facility and the Scotford bitumen
upgrading facility, where bitumen extracted from the oil sands is
converted into synthetic crude oil. The fuel cell carbon
capture solution efficiently concentrates the CO2 from the
facility’s extraction process as a side reaction to fuel cell power
generation and this ability to produce power while simultaneously
capturing CO2 is the critical differentiator compared to
conventional capture technologies. The study will determine how a
megawatt-scale FuelCell Energy power plant operating on natural gas
can affordably capture up to 43 tons of CO2 per day as well as
destroy approximately 70 percent of the nitrogen oxide (NOx) in the
flue gas routed to the fuel cell from the bitumen upgraders.
These upgraders convert heavy oil (bitumen) into synthetic crude
oil.
Fuel cell power plants configured for carbon capture will
utilize natural gas as the fuel source and process the flue gas
from the natural gas-fired boiler at the heavy oil thermal facility
into the fuel cell air system, where CO2 is transferred across the
fuel cell membrane for concentration in the fuel exhaust stream
during power generation. This efficient CO2 concentration is a side
reaction of the standard fuel cell power generation process.
In addition to partial NOx destruction, fuel cells
generate excess process water, resulting in a reduction of the
overall water intensity of the host gas-fired plant. Learn
more about this fuel cell carbon capture solution including a
schematic that illustrates the affordable economics for ratepayers
- click here
About Alberta InnovatesAlberta Innovates is an
important investment in the growth and diversification of Alberta’s
economy. The corporation builds on provincial strengths in health,
environment, energy, food, fibre and emerging technologies to
produce results that contribute to the province’s health, social
and economic future. Alberta Innovates delivers the kind of
cross-sectoral support and leadership that Alberta’s world-class
researchers, entrepreneurs and industry innovators need to thrive
in a globally competitive research and innovation context.
Services, tools, expertise, partnerships and funding from Alberta
Innovates support a broad range of research and innovation
activity, from discovery to application, with the focus on
accelerating commercial outcomes. Find out more at
http://albertainnovates.ca
About FuelCell EnergyDirect FuelCell® power
plants are generating ultra-clean, efficient and reliable power on
three continents, affordably providing continuous distributed power
generation to a variety of industries including utilities,
commercial and municipal customers. The Company’s power
plants have generated billions of kilowatt hours of ultra-clean
power using a wide variety of fuels including renewable biogas from
wastewater treatment and food processing, as well as clean natural
gas. For additional information, please visit
www.fuelcellenergy.com and follow us on Twitter.
Direct FuelCell, DFC, DFC/T, DFC-H2, DFC-ERG and FuelCell Energy
logo are all registered trademarks of FuelCell Energy, Inc.
Contact:
FuelCell Energy
Kurt Goddard, Vice President Investor Relations
203-830-7494
ir@fce.com
Alberta Innovates
Michelle Gurney
Acting Executive Director, Communications
TEL: 403.431.0759
michelle.gurney@albertainnovates.ca
FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ:FCEL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ:FCEL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024