Carbon+Intel: Calpine’s Deer Park Energy Center to proceed to engineering design stage using Shell’s CO2 technology

Shell Catalysts & Technologies supports Calpine's front-end-engineering design (FEED) of a post-combustion CO₂ capture facility based on Shell’s Cansolv CO₂ technology for the natural gas combined cycle power plant at Calpine’s Deer Park Energy Center in Texas.

The facility will be designed to capture roughly 5 MM tpy of CO₂, which equates to 95% of the total CO₂ emitted by the natural gas combined cycle power plant each year. The FEED study will be supported by Technip Energies on behalf of Shell Catalysts & Technologies. This is one of the largest CO₂ capture FEED studies awarded worldwide. 

The Deer Park Energy Center, located in Deer Park, Texas is a combined cycle cogeneration facility supplying a base load capacity of over 1,100 MW to the ERCOT grid as well as steam to an adjacent facility. 

On October 6, 2021, the carbon capture project at Deer Park Energy Center was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management for federal funding as part of the department’s efforts to support transformative and innovative CCS technologies. The FEED study is expected to be finalized by early 2023. 

Andy Gosse, President, Shell Catalysts & Technologies, commented, “We are very proud to work with Calpine as a partner for this pioneering project. Shell’s CANSOLV CO₂ capture technology has been in operation since 2013, including in a large-scale, commercial, low-pressure application at SaskPower in Canada, where it is designed to capture up to 1 MMtpy of CO₂. This project with Calpine represents a step up in scale and will be a flagship project not only for the companies involved, but also in the world of carbon capture and storage.” 

Stan Knez, Chief Technology Officer of Technip Energies, added: “We are pleased to be selected, along with our technology partner Shell Catalysts & Technologies, to work on this leading carbon capture and sequestration project for gas power in the US. Decarbonization is a key part of the energy transition journey and we are glad to bring our technology improvement and integration, engineering and project execution expertise to a pioneer project of such dimension.”

Caleb Stephenson, Calpine’s Executive Vice President of Commercial Operations, said: “We are excited about the opportunity to work with Shell Catalysts & Technologies and Technip Energies to deploy this innovative emission reduction technology. It is our hope that this is just the beginning of what we can accomplish with the right policies, including the enhanced 45Q credit for the power sector that is now being considered in Congress. For Calpine, this is a natural part of a comprehensive strategy that includes a variety of major investments in geothermal, energy storage, and highly-efficient gas plants to power a cleaner future. 

The capture of CO₂ reflects Calpine’s ongoing commitment to support a low-carbon economy by delivering reliable, clean energy to customers across North America. At about 5 MMtpy of possible CO₂ sequestration from the Deer Park Energy Center, this project promises to deliver carbon reduction equal to taking over 1-MM cars off the road.” 

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