OCTAVIUS: Evaluation of Flexibility and operability of Amine Based Post Combustion CO₂ Capture at the Brindisi Pilot Plant

Solvent storage is an option for amine based post combustion capture that can be used to de-couple the capture of CO₂ and the energy demand of the process. In this process, electricity output of a power station is temporarily increased by diverting steam from the CO₂ capture plant back to the steam turbines. To maintain CO₂ capture, an increased solvent inventory is deployed to provide fresh solvent for capture and storage tanks are used to store solvent to be regenerated at a later time. The OCTAVIUS project aimed to evaluate the performance of this solvent storage process through testing at the Brindisi CO₂ capture pilot facility. This facility is owned and operated by the Italian utility ENEL and is based at ENEL's Federico II coal power plant in southern Italy, which provides coal- fired flue gas to the pilot plant.

Over one week the solvent storage process was successfully demonstrated at large scale; four tests were completed to assess different operating modes and conditions. For all tests it was found that it took significant amount of time for the stripper to stabilize. This stabilization time meant that in one pass, the solvent could not be fully regenerated. This also resulted in the regeneration being at non-optimal conditions greatly increasing amount of energy required for regeneration. Follow up work should seek to ensure the plant design is appropriate for solvent storage to avoid the issues faced in this experiment. OCTAVIUS will investigate solvent storage in a flexible market model in 2015.