The Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) was established under the US Department of Energy (DOE) in 2002 to enable and accelerate the deployment of advanced "clean coal" technologies in the U.S. It is a cost-shared partnership between government and industry to develop and demonstrate advanced coal-based power generation technologies at commercial scale.
The DOE added US$800 million in financial aid to its third funding round of the CCPI in 2009 under provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The selected projects will be cost shared and the award recipient(s) are to provide at least 50 percent of the funds for the project. The CCPI's third round considers commercial-scale projects that capture CO2 from coal-fired power pants and either sequester the CO2 or put it to beneficial use.
Funding under CCPI for industrial facilities is also provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, described separately.
EXPERIENCE:
In the first two rounds, funding was given to projects that did not have carbon dioxide sequestration plans, but as of October 1, 2009, the CCPI has provided $408 million in third round funding to Basin Electric Power Cooperative ($100 million) and Hydrogen Energy ($308 million) in July 2009. Both of those projects include carbon capture and storage.
Other projects selected in the third round of funding, announced in December 2009, were: American Electric Power Co.'s Mountaineer Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Demonstration project ($334 million) and Summit Texas Clean Energy's project ($350 million). Southern Company Services' Alabama Power Plant Barry project was allocated ($295 million) but the project was abandoned in March 2010.
