Work Continues at Integrated Test Center

The Wyoming Integrated Test Center (ITC) is a one-of-a-kind research facility providing space for testing of carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) technologies using actual coalbased flue gas from Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s Dry Fork Station near Gillette. It’s one of a handful of facilities around the world and only the second one in the United States that allows for real world testing at an active power plant, helping to alleviate typical concerns about commercial scale up. This testing capacity is a critical step necessary for CCUS technologies to reach commercialization.

The ITC is a public-private partnership between the State of Wyoming, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and Basin Electric Power Cooperative. Funding was allocated in 2014, construction began in 2016 and the facility was completed in 2018. While the facility was largely closed to the public over the past year, research continued with three different research teams conducting onsite tests.

TDA Research was the first tenant to move onsite in 2019, conducting testing throughout 2020 and into 2021. TDA has a novel hybrid carbon capture system that incorporates both membrane and solid sorbent technologies. Two finalists from the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE were still able to travel onsite to the ITC in 2020 and complete their testing for the competition. Dimensional Energy’s carbon utilization technology used a photocatalytic CO2 reaction system to produce a syngas chemical feedstock that can be converted into liquid fuels. Their goal is to commercialize sustainable jetfuel. CarbonBuilt, the coal-track winner of the Carbon XPRIZE, developed a low CO2 concrete replacement which permanently embeds CO2 into the concrete. While onsite at the ITC, CarbonBuilt successfully injected nearly three tons of CO2 into more than 10,000 concrete blocks they cured. This year the work will continue. Partnerships with DOE and Researchers Membrane Technology and Research was one of two projects selected to advance to the third and final phase of the Department of Energy’s funding opportunity for a large-scale pilot carbon capture project. The $64 million award will allow MTR to test their membrane carbon capture technology in the ITC’s large test bay and utilize approximately 10MWe of coal-based flue gas. Design work will begin this year and they are expected onsite in 2022. Gas Technology Institute will also be testing a membrane capture technology at the ITC with funding from the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. GTI will be working with their partner, the Ohio State University, to build an engineering-scale system and are currently working on designs and permitting. Both these technologies will help expand the suite of carbon capture options that are available at the commercial scale for post-combustion facilities.

Partnerships with Japan Wyoming has been working jointly with Japan since 2016 to advance CCUS technologies. JCOAL and Kawasaki Heavy Industries announced in 2018 the plan for KHI to test their solid sorbent technology at the ITC. Since then KHI has been working through the design and permitting process and is expected to be onsite in early 2022. And finally, a partnership between GreenOre Technology, Columbia University, and JCOAL will bring a test skid to the ITC to GreenOre’s carbon utilization and carbon recycling technology at the ITC. Fostering the next generation of carbon management research, the ITC plays a crucial role in the scale up and commercialization of carbon management technologies. Over $100 million in projects are in the ITC pipeline, demonstrating the wisdom of Wyoming’s early investment to build the facility. These projects not only have the potential to extend the life of coal plants, they can help Wyoming’s efforts to establish itself as the center of the next generation of energy technology development.

BY: JASON BEGGER Managing Director of the Wyoming Integrated Test Center

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