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Nuon's Magnum plant: a step towards sustainability; Building on experience with the Willem Alexander IGCC plant at Buggenum in the Netherlands, Nuon is planning a 1200 MWe multi-fuel IGCC at Eemshaven, in the north of the country.

Article Excerpt
Deciding whether or not to build new generating capacity is a complex business, as is the choice of technology, against a backdrop of changing energy markets and uncertain environmental legislation. But globally, the arguments in favour of using coal for power generation are getting stronger. Proven coal reserves could last more than 200 years based on current consumption levels and coal does not suffer from the same price volatility, supply uncertainties and geopolitical complications that some fuels do.

Nuon, an independent international energy company based in the Netherlands, which focuses on north west Europe and aspires to be a provider of clean, reliable and affordable energy, is working on the development of a new clean coal plant called Nuon Magnum. This can be seen as the next step in the transition towards a sustainable energy future. While coal will be the principal fuel, Nuon Magnum is envisaged as a multi-fuel power plant, also able to use gas and biomass. It would be based on gasification technology in which biomass can be co-fired with the coal on a large scale and which provides possibilities for C[O.sub.2] capture.

The new plant, with an installed capacity of 1200 MWe, is expected to start commercial operation in 2011. The final investment decision is to be taken this year. ABB Lummus is acting as project management consultant, helping Nuon get to this decision point. The gasification technology to be used is one of the cleanest and most flexible ways of generating electricity from solid or liquid fuels and will build on Nuon's already extensive experience of coal gasification at the Willem-Alexander plant at Buggenum.

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Why multi-fuel?

Coal gasification offers great advances in comparison with other large-scale power generation technologies and the Nuon Magnum plant promises a combination of high environmental standards with good economics. The benefits of the multi-fuel gasification concept can be summarised as follows:

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* Sustainability. One of the most important benefits of coal gasification is the environmental performance. Measurements at Buggenum (see below) demonstrate very low emissions of dust, S[O.sub.2], N[O.sub.x] and heavy metals. In addition it offers the most cost-effective route to C[O.sub.2] sequestration using pre-combustion.

Nuon Magnum will also have the ability to fire substantial amounts of bio-fuels and other secondary fuels, which will be necessary to comply with future regulatory restrictions and to achieve a more sustainable energy balance.

* Flexibility. With energy markets prone to volatility, it is important that a plant is able to switch fuels. The multi-fuel concept of the Nuon Magnum plant provides this capability within one unit, maintaining high efficiency and low marginal costs.

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A multi-fuel plant, operating on coal for baseload and gas for peak load, will be well placed in the Netherlands as well as in the merit order of north west European plants as a whole. Other technologies have limited potential in this respect.

In the long run the overall demand pattern could shift to...

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