Jänschwalde CCS
Brief description:
Facts:
Jänschwalde power plant
In December 2011, Swedish state-owned energy company Vattenfall announced its decision to cancel what had been a promising CCS demonstration project in Jänschwalde. The company cited a "lack of political will" to provide legislation needed for CCS in Germany. Prior to that, the demo had been ranked as the most advanced CCS demonstration plant within the European Union.
Vattenfall had been developing the demo to test and develop oxyfuel and post-combustion capture technologies at an existing brown coal-fired power plant at Jänschwalde, Brandenburg, in Germany. The company released the project's FEED studies, which had been supported by the European Energy Programme for Recovery (EEPR), in August 2012. Access them here.
The capture plant would have been retrofitted to one of six 500MW generating units, which has two boilers - one equipped with oxyfuel technology, the other with post-combustion technology based on a chilled ammonia process. The demonstration plant would have produced 300 MW and captured up to 1.7 million tonnes per year of CO2.
Vattenfall was cooperating with Gaz de France Production and Exploration to test a technology for storing the captured CO2 in a depleted natural gas field in the Altmark. However, in December 2011, Vattenfall also cancelled plans to explore possible storage facilities in Eastern Germany.
The company has stated its intention to continue with further development of CCS, and is the main partner in the Ferrybridge post-combustion project in the UK. It has stated its aim to be a carbon neutral company by 2050.
Financing
Vattenfall estimated a total investment need of €1.5 billion. As an EU-backed project, it has been awarded funding of €180 million from the EEPR. However, it could only have received the money if Germany had accepted the EU CCS directive into national law. The project had also applied for funding from NER300, and was submitted by the German Government to the European Investment Bank on 9 May 2011.
More information and press releases
Vattenfall press release on cancellation, 5 December 2011
Article on relevance of CCS legislation change, 14 March 2011
Reuters article on CCS legislation, 13 April 2011
EU project funding list, 9 December 2009
Carbon Capture Journal article, 24 May 2008