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NEWS RELEASE
October 6, 2016
CONTACT: Jason Begger
307-635-3573
[email protected]
Wyoming ITC Opens Application Process for Research Teams
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Matt Mead announced the opening of the application process for researchers and potential tenants at the Wyoming Integrated Test Center (ITC). The ITC is being built at Basin Electric Power Cooperatives’ Dry Fork Station near Gillette. Its goal is to advance Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technologies.
“Every day, scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs around the world are making advancements in carbon utilization and storage technologies,” said Governor Mead. “There is no better place to bring the best and brightest to test these cutting edge technologies than in Wyoming. The Wyoming ITC will be an incubator for game-changing technology and energy evolution.”
The Wyoming ITC issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to identify candidates and select initial users of test bays. Interested parties may obtain and submit applications at www.wyomingitc.org. Applicants will need to go through a secure login process, creating a username and password to obtain and upload the RFP.
The RFP gives interested parties the opportunity to “lease,” at no cost, a test bay with flue gas slipstream from a coal-fired power plant in a competitive process. The ITC provides developers of advanced post-combustion CO2 capture technologies a place to test equipment and processes in a real-world commercial facility.
Individuals and groups in private industry, government agencies, government laboratories, university faculty and staff may submit proposals.
The ITC will provide space for researchers to test CCUS technologies using 20 MW of actual coal based flue gas to be split among one large test bay and five smaller test bays. The large test bay will have access to flue gas equivalent of 5 MW to 18 MW. Today’s RFP is for large test bay applicants.
RFPs will be reviewed and a selection made by a technical advisory committee made up of Wyoming ITC partners including the State of Wyoming, Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Proposals are due to the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority by December 12, 2016. The ITC is expected to be available in late 2017.
The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE was previously announced as the first tenant of the Wyoming ITC. The Carbon XPRIZE is a global competition designed to spur breakthrough technologies that convert the most CO2 into one or more products with the highest net value. A total of forty-seven entries from seven countries were submitted earlier this year to contend for the $20 million prize – twenty of these entries are competing for space at the Wyoming ITC. XPRIZE will announce those advancing to Round 2 in October 2016. Finalists from Round 2 advancing to Round 3 will be named in December 2017.
For more on the ITC and information on the process, please visit www.wyomingitc.org or contact Jason Begger, Executive Director of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, at [email protected] or 307-635-3573.
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About the ITC
The ITC is a public-private partnership designed to foster the next generation of energy technology. The ITC will provide space for researchers to test Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration (CCUS) technologies using actual coal based flue gas from the Dry Fork Station near Gillette.
In 2014, with the support and encouragement of Governor Matt Mead, the Wyoming State Legislature allocated $15 million in funding for the design, construction and operation of an integrated test center to study the capture, sequestration and management of carbon emissions from a Wyoming coal-based power plant. An additional $5 million commitment from private industry was required under the appropriation, which has since been secured from the
Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
in addition to $1 million pledged from the
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
. Basin Electric Power Cooperative is providing additional in-kind contributions including engineering and construction management services at the Dry Fork Station host site, which is jointly owned by Basin Electric and the Wyoming Municipal Power Agency.
The ITC is slated to be one of a handful of such facilities around the world and only the second one in the United States. While many carbon capture technologies are being developed and studied in laboratory settings, the ITC will be one of the few research and testing facilities at an operating coal-fired powered plant. The ITC will allow for real world testing at an active power plant and alleviates typical concerns over being able to transfer technology from a lab to a plant.
Pre-construction engineering and design work started in 2015. In March 2016, when the Dry Fork Station went into routine maintenance mode, a large steel damper was installed into the flue system that will help direct gas to researchers at the test center. The ITC is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2017.
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Wyoming Infrastructure Authority
200 E 17th Street
Cheyenne, WY 82001
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