The United States Department of Energy (DOE) and Southern Company Services Inc. have completed construction of the Power Systems Development Facility in Wilsonville, Alabama. Built as a series of technology modules, the facility is intended to serve as the proving ground for several types of advanced electric generating technologies and environmental cleanup systems currently being developed for the next generation of coal-fired power plants.
The final core module to be constructed was an advanced pressurized fluidized-bed combustion system designed by Foster Wheeler Inc., and built by Caddell Inc. of Montgomery, Alabama. Along with the pressurized fluidized-bed unit and a bubbling-bed carbonizer, the facility also houses an advanced transport reactor developed by the M.W. Kellogg Company that can be used as either a coal gasifier or a combustor. A high-temperature, high-pressure gas cleanup module can be used for testing interchangeable particulate control devices, external sulfur-removal systems, and trace element removal technologies. Westinghouse's rich-quench-lean topping combustor and a combustion turbine are also installed at the facility, and plans are eventually to incorporate a fuel cell.
With a total 10-year cost of $271 million for construction and initial test operations, the Power Systems Development Facility is estimated to have saved more than $32 million compared to the cost of building individual pilot plants for each of the emerging new technologies in DOE's Advanced Power Systems R&D Program. The facility will also be made available to private developers to test innovated power system components, from new combustors to advanced filtration devices.
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