Applications to Compete for NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE Due July 15

Gillette, Wyoming – The deadline is quickly approaching for teams to apply to compete in the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE global competition – a $20 million race to develop breakthrough technologies that will convert carbon emissions from power plants and industrial facilities into valuable products like building materials, alternative fuels and other items that we use every day.

“What the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE is incentivizing is turning a waste product into an asset, something we can sell,” said Jason Begger, Executive Director of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority. “If we can convert something that is a liability into a meaningful product that can be bought and sold, we can not only reduce emissions, but help, ultimately, drive down costs for consumers by creating a secondary market for energy production.”

“We cannot wait to see the diversity of teams from around the world that will compete for the Carbon XPRIZE. These bold innovators will help usher us into a new era of energy innovation with their breakthroughs,” says Paul Bunje, principal and senior scientist at XPRIZE. "The ITC gives innovators a state-of-the-art platform to make history by demonstrating their carbon mitigation and conversion technologies at scale.”

The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE is slated to be the first tenant of the Wyoming ITC. Teams interested in competing for the prize must submit their applications by July 15, 2016.

“We are proud to have the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE as the first tenants of the Wyoming ITC,” Begger continued. “The goal of this project was to facilitate partnerships just like these that can bring together the world’s best and brightest to work on real-world solutions to address carbon emissions.”

According to the XPRIZE Foundation, which sponsors numerous competitions covering a wide range of challenges, from adult literacy to advancing ocean exploration, “an XPRIZE is a highly leveraged, incentivized prize competition that pushes the limits of what’s possible to change the world for the better.”

The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE competition will have two tracks – one focused on testing technologies at a coal power plant and one focused on testing technologies at a natural gas power plant. Each track will operate as a separate competition on the same timeline. Teams will compete in three rounds for a total prize purse of $20 million.

To determine the winners, XPRIZE will appoint a judging panel to evaluate the various technologies and approaches developed by teams during the competition. XPRIZE will also appoint a third-party Scientific Advisory Board of experts available to advise on a variety of approaches to CO2 conversion.

For more information about the competition, or to register to compete, visit carbon.xprize.org.

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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 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 the host site as well as many additional in-kind contributions including engineering and construction management services.

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 of 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.