The two, firm-price, turnkey EPC contracts that guarantee price, schedule and performance for the integrated coal gasification combined cycle (IGCC) project were finalized in December by the project’s three EPC contractors: Siemens Energy Inc.; Selas Fluid Processing Corporation, a subsidiary of The Linde Group; and SK Engineering & Construction, a major Korean contractor. The total value of the EPC contracts is approximately $2 billion.

Selas Fluid Processing and SK E&C will supply a complete chemical block capable of producing syngas by gasifying Powder River Basin coal. A portion of the syngas fuels a Siemens power block, and the balance is used for the production of granulated urea. The chemical block captures 90% of the CO2 from the syngas and compresses the CO2 for sale to the mature, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) market in West Texas. The chemical block EPC contract also includes coal handling, coal gasification based on two Siemens SFG-500 gasifiers, gas cleanup, mercury removal, ammonia and urea production facilities, sulfuric acid plant, water treatment, CO2 compression, site preparation, plant buildings and other goods and services.

In the second EPC contract, Siemens Energy will supply a nominally rated 400MW combined cycle power plant capable of operating on syngas and natural gas. The power block is comprised of an SGT6-5000F gas turbine capable of operating on high-hydrogen syngas or natural gas. The power block includes an air-cooled condenser for plant cooling, which greatly reduces the water needed for the project, and a high-voltage switchyard.

A separate, 15-year O&M contract was also signed for the complete, turnkey operation and maintenance of the entire 600-acre facility, including day-to-day operation, and short term and long term maintenance. The contract, signed by Linde’s Gases Division, includes guarantees of performance and availability by Linde’s Gases Division and Siemens for the full 15-year contract period.

TCEP is a leading carbon capture and storage (CCS) project for the U.S. Department of Energy, which in 2010 awarded the project $450 million under the third round of its Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI). CCPI is a cost-shared collaboration between the Federal government and private industry, aimed at stimulating investment in low-emission, coal-based power generation technologies through successful commercial demonstrations. Of the $450 million, $211 million comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The facility is expected to be fully operational in 2015.

“TCEP is among the most innovative and promising projects selected under DOE’s Clean Coal Power Initiative,” said Charles McConnell, Assistant Secretary nominee and Chief Operating Officer of DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE). “The IGCC technology it will demonstrate is a prototype for clean and efficient coal-based power plants of the near future. We are proud of Fossil Energy’s role in the research, development and deployment of IGCC and the technologies in our carbon capture, utilization, and storage and advanced energy technologies programs, and pleased to collaborate with Summit Power Group on this project.”

DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy has been instrumental in the research, development, and deployment of IGCC and other innovative energy technologies and is playing a pivotal role in advancing America’s energy future while helping to enhance environmental stewardship.

Gasification is a chemical process that uses oxygen and steam at high temperatures and pressures to convert coal into synthesis gas, also known as syngas, which is mainly a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The syngas is cleaned to remove impurities and sent to a gas turbine where it undergoes combustion to produce electricity. The hot flue gas from the gas turbine is used to generate steam, which is fed to a steam turbine to produce additional electricity. The process is known as IGCC because coal-fired gasification is integrated into a combined-cycle system that produces electricity from both the gas turbine and the steam turbine.

In the TCEP carbon capture plant, the syngas will first undergo a “shift reaction” to produce additional hydrogen and CO2, cleaned of impurities, and then separated into pure streams of CO2 and high-hydrogen, low-carbon syngas. The high-hydrogen syngas will be used as fuel in an advanced combustion turbine, producing an extremely low-carbon flue gas. The vast majority of the approximately 2.5 million standard tons per year of CO2 that will be captured annually by the plant will be used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the West Texas Permian Basin.

“This is perhaps the best evidence yet that two distinct yet equally important technologies for advanced coal projects — coal gasification and carbon capture — are mature enough technologically to enable a commercial scale power plant that incorporates both to get full warranties for performance, reliability, availability, efficiency and emissions control,” said Donald Hodel, Chairman of the Board and co-founder of Summit Power Group. “Every American who is concerned about energy should be excited and proud that from national security and environmental sustainability standpoints this day has come, and we give credit to the U.S. Department of Energy, Congress, our Texas elected officials, and our construction partners for staying the course and helping us reach this day.”

Summit Power Group is a 20-year-old company that is based in Seattle, WA, and has developed more than 7,000 megawatts and billions of dollars worth of U.S. power projects, primarily natural gas-fueled and wind energy, and solar power projects through a photovoltaic (PV) solar joint venture called NorthLight with Norway-based Renewable Energy Corporation (REC). TCEP is Summit’s first project using coal as a feedstock, in this case for a gasification process that does not burn coal but instead converts the coal into clean-burning industrial gases and a pure stream of CO2 that is captured and sequestered.

The Linde Group is a world-leading gases and engineering company with approximately 50,000 people working in more than 100 countries worldwide. In the 2010 financial year, it achieved sales of USD 17.9 billion (EUR 12.9 billion). The strategy of The Linde Group is geared towards long-term profitable growth and focuses on the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services. Linde acts responsibly towards its shareholders, business partners, employees, society and the environment — in every one of its business areas, regions and locations across the globe. Linde is committed to technologies and products that unite the goals of customer value and sustainable development.

For more information, see The Linde Group online at http://www.linde.com .

Siemens AG SI +0.17% is a global powerhouse in electronics and electrical engineering, and operates in the industry, energy and healthcare sectors. For more than 160 years, Siemens has built a reputation for leading- edge innovation and the quality of its products, services and solutions. With 405,000 employees in 190 countries, Siemens reported worldwide sales of $104.3 billion in fiscal 2009. With its U.S. corporate headquarters in Washington, DC, Siemens in the USA reported sales of $21.3 billion and employs more than 60,000 people throughout all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

SK Engineering and Construction (E&C) Co., Ltd ( www.skec.com ) is one of the world’s best qualified engineering, procurement, construction, and maintenance services organizations. Since its incorporation in 1977, SK E&C has developed into one of Korea’s leaders in the engineering and construction industry. The company, which built Korea’s largest oil refinery complex, is a world-class competitor in Korea and abroad in plant, civil, building, and housing works. Its parent company, SK Group, is Korea’s third largest conglomerate and one of the leading business organizations in the world, made up of 92 member companies, including 16 that are listed on the Korea Stock Exchange. The company employs 35,000 people of many nationalities.

For more information about the Texas Clean Energy Project ( www.texascleanenergyproject.com ) or Summit Power Group, contact Laura Miller, Summit’s Director of Projects, Texas, at 214-763-0600, or email lmiller@summitpower.com. For more information about DOE-sponsored clean coal projects, including TCEP, go to www.fossil.energy.gov .

83 S. King Street, Suite 200 Seattle, WA 98104 Phone: 206.780.3551 Fax: 206.780.3571 www.summitpower.com

SOURCE: Summit Power Group

Texas Clean Energy Project to Sell Sulfuric Acid to Shrieve Chemical

DALLAS, Texas, October 27, 2011 – Summit Power Group’s Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP) will enter into a long-term, exclusive contract with The Woodlands-based Shrieve Chemical Company to market 100% of the sulfuric acid produced at the power/polygen project, located near Odessa.

TCEP is able to manufacture sulfuric acid as a commercial product because TCEP, a gasification project, does not burn coal but instead uses coal as a feedstock in a chemical process. That process allows the sulfur to be captured and converted into a valuable commodity instead of being burned and released into the atmosphere as sulfur dioxide.
The sulfuric acid agreement is the fourth of its kind for TCEP, which has previously announced a commitment for the sale of all of TCEP’s electricity, and signed contracts for all of TCEP’s urea fertilizer and for TCEP’s compressed carbon dioxide, which will be used in enhanced oil recovery in the West Texas Permian Basin.
TCEP, when completed in 2015, will be a first-of-a-kind integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) 400 MW plant that will capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide, 99 percent of the sulfur, more than 95 percent of the mercury, and eliminate more than 90 percent of the nitrogen oxides produced by the process – making it overall the cleanest coal-fueled power project ever permitted in Texas.
TCEP was awarded $450 million by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2010. The award comprised funds from both the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) and the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The project will create more than 1,500 construction jobs, more than 150 high-paying full-time plant jobs when operational, and approximately 8,000 ancillary jobs with vendors in manufacturing, distribution, transportation and professional services.
“We are pleased to have entered into another long-term sales agreement for one of TCEP’s commercial products, bringing us a step closer to financial closing with equity investors and lenders and groundbreaking after the first of the year,” said Eric Redman, President of Summit Power Group.

Shrieve will market the sulfuric acid to mining, manufacturing and fertilizer customers. Linde Process Plants, Inc., an affiliate of TCEP’s major contractor, selected MECS SULFOX® to build the sulfuric acid

plant, which will convert a hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) stream from a Rectisol® gas cleanup unit downstream of TCEP’s gasifiers into approximately 50,000 tons per year of merchant-quality sulfuric acid. Production is scheduled to be online in early to mid-2015 when TCEP goes operational.

About Summit

Summit is a 20-year-old company based in Seattle, WA, that has developed more than 7,000 megawatts and billions of dollars worth of U.S. power projects, primarily natural gas-fired and wind energy, with solar power recently added through a photovoltaic (PV) solar joint venture called NorthLight with Norway-based Renewable Energy Corporation (REC). TCEP is Summit’s first project using coal as a feedstock, in this case for a coal gasification process that does not burn coal but instead converts the coal by chemical processes into clean-burning industrial gases and a pure stream of CO2 that is captured and sequestered.

About Shrieve
Shrieve Chemical Company was founded in 1978 in The Woodlands, Texas, and has grown as an international supplier of organic and inorganic industrial commodity chemicals. Shrieve has become one of the leading suppliers of sulfur and sulfuric acid within North America. As marketers of industrial chemicals, synthetic fluids, proprietary refrigeration oils and additives, Shrieve continues to predicate its business philosophy on solution oriented relationships, exceptional service, and innovative marketing.

For more information about the Texas Clean Energy Project (www.texascleanenergyproject.com) or Summit Power Group, please contact Laura Miller, Summit Power’s Director of Projects, Texas, at 214-763-0600, or email lmiller@summitpower.com.

For more information about Shrieve Chemical Company (www.shrieve.com), please contact Avis Fuller, Executive Assistant, at 281-367-4226 or email afuller@shrieve.com.

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ARLINGTON, Va. – The Department of Energy will emphasize funding for carbon capture, sequestration and utilization research and projects as a way to “move the needle” on climate change in the coming decade in the absence of climate legislation, a top official said.

Chuck McConnell, chief operating officer of the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy, said at a conference today there’s nobody in his office “who’s going to wait around for climate legislation and be paralyzed in the meantime.”

The likelihood of climate legislation clearing both chambers of Congress has fallen substantially since Senate Republicans filibustered a cap-and-trade bill in 2010. With fossil fuels not going away anytime soon, McConnell said his agency would continue funding research into technologies for capturing and using carbon emissions.

“We’re going to take a business and industrial approach to it and put together market plans and business plans that industry can get behind and want to invest, not be forced to invest,” McConnell said.

DOE has touted using captured carbon dioxide in enhanced oil recovery, which industry has increasingly turned to for extracting oil that first-line and second-line methods can’t access.

McConnell said funding the research is especially important because companies are running out of carbon dioxide for use in EOR, “Yet we’re venting it like there’s nobody’s business.” One EOR method involves injecting carbon dioxide into wells to make crude in deep rock formations less viscous and easier to extract.

The DOE says the U.S. has more than a trillion barrels of undeveloped oil resources still in the ground. About 430 billion barrels of that is recoverable using today’s technology, including EOR methods, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

EOR is most common right now in the Permian Basin region of Texas and New Mexico. Some companies in Texas, including ExxonMobil Corp., have started shifting toward EOR to access harder-to-reach oil as first- and second-line methods extract less and less oil.

Using EOR methods could add as many as 2.5 million jobs and reduce oil imports by 30 to 40 percent in the next 20 years, McConnell said. The Texas Bureau of Economic Geology has suggested that extracting even 10 percent of the crude that EOR methods can reach in the state could add over $200 billion to the Texas economy and create 1.5 million jobs in the state.

Carbon capture, sequestration and utilization projects are occurring right now in the absence of congressional action on climate, because they make sense economically to industry.”

He added that government subsidies have helped the cause.

The DOE in late September finalized $450 million in previously announced funding for the Texas Clean Energy Project near Odessa, Texas, a 400-megawatt power plant that will capture 90 percent of emitted carbon for later EOR use.

Billions of dollars in similar projects are underway nationwide with DOE funding, he said, including FutureGen 2.0, a project for retrofitting St. Louis-based Ameren Corp.’s 200-megawatt coal plant in Meredosia, Ill.

“That’s what we’re supposed to be doing at Fossil Energy, catalyzing industries that are going to have a long-term future in this country,” he said.

Enhanced oil recovery is one facet of the DOE’s fossil-fuel portfolio that also includes research and development into shale gas technologies, as well as technologies for capturing, sequestering and utilizing carbon emissions from coal combustion.

But with Congress looking for ways to reduce the federal deficit, McConnell said he felt certain the DOE’s budget would face cuts in the coming years.

“We have to figure out how to do more with less,” he said. “Sounds trite, but it’s absolutely true.”

Summit is developing several CCS projects, most notably the Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP), a gasification facility with ninety percent (90%) carbon capture that will produce electric power and fertilizer, as well as captured carbon dioxide. TCEP is a showcase project of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Coal Power Initiative, which made a $450 million award to TCEP in 2010. The millions of tons of carbon dioxide captured from TCEP will be injected into depleted oil fields to enhance oil production and will be geologically sequestered from the atmosphere.

In his new role, Mr. Mackler will help manage commercial and policy aspects of the company’s carbon-capture initiatives. He will focus on carbon-capture power projects and emerging technologies, as well as business opportunities for climate-friendly commercial uses of captured carbon such as enhanced oil production.

“Sasha was an integral part of the Bipartisan Policy Center Energy Project, helping shape the organization’s vision for a secure and clean energy future,” stated James L. Jones, General, USMC (ret.), the recently departed National Security Advisor to President Obama, former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, and current co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Energy Project. “We’ll miss Sasha at the BPC, but I expect his ongoing contributions to our country’s clean-energy future to be significant in his new capacity at Summit.”

Mr. Mackler worked at the Bipartisan Policy Center as a founding staff member of its Energy Project, which played a key role in drafting recent Federal energy laws. Mr. Mackler oversaw numerous projects in close collaboration with leaders from the U.S. business, political, environmental and financial communities on the complex issues of energy production, incentives, environmental impacts and innovation. His work at the Bipartisan Policy Center has helped to inform and establish viable, long-term progress in clean energy, as well as stimulate significant policy debate in Washington, DC.

Prior to his position with the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Energy Project, Mr. Mackler worked closely with leaders of the U.S. energy sector as the research director for the National Commission on Energy Policy. He was also part of the team tasked with developing market-based emission trading programs in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Air Markets Division, and as an engineer designing high-performance buildings at London-based design and engineer consultancy ARUP.

“Sasha is singularly qualified to help make carbon-capture projects a reality in the U.S. and abroad,” stated Eric Redman, president of Summit Power Group. “As a carbon policy expert, he is respected and admired by national leaders in the private sector, the public sector, and the environmental community. We expect Sasha to help drive development of innovative low-carbon energy projects that will yield important economic, strategic and environmental benefits for the U.S. and the world.”

Mr. Mackler earned a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) degree from Columbia University, which also awarded him a Masters of Science (MS) degree in earth-resources engineering. His Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in earth-resources engineering is from the University of Rochester.

“Summit Power operates at the very focal point of commercial-scale carbon-capture projects, and therefore at the intersection of clean energy technology, policy and finance,” said Mackler. “As part of the Summit Carbon Capture team, I look forward to putting my experience and skills into practice to help develop such projects and make a better energy and environmental future.”

About Summit Power Group, LLC Summit Power Group, LLC, excels in the innovative development of clean electric power projects. Led by experienced professionals with an extensive knowledge of the energy industry in the United States and abroad, Summit has a remarkable track record of developing large, low-carbon energy projects with over 7,000 megawatts of electric power plants in operation, and over 2,000 MW in development or under construction. Total Summit-led projects in service or under contract, including O & M agreements, represent over 7 billion dollars of investment.

HOUSTON and DALLAS, Texas, July 20, 2011 – Summit Power Group, LLC and Blue Strategies, LLC today announce the signing of a historic, long-term carbon dioxide (CO2) sales agreement with Whiting Petroleum Corporation for CO2 that will be captured by Summit’s Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP), a coal gasification with carbon capture project being developed in Penwell, Texas, outside Odessa.

TCEP will be a first-of-its-kind, integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) 400MW power/poly-gen plant that will capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide, 99 percent of the sulfur, more than 95 percent of the mercury, and eliminate more than 90 percent of the nitrogen oxides produced by the process. When TCEP received its final air quality permit last December with no opposition or requests for a hearing, it became the cleanest coal-fueled power plant ever permitted in Texas. Its high carbon-capture rate reduces the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted to the atmosphere to less than 10 percent of the emissions for power from a conventional coal plant, and less than 25 percent of those for power from a highly efficient, natural gas-fired plant.

Summit, a leading power developer based in Seattle, WA, and Blue Strategies, a Houston-based developer of physical CO2 projects, partnered in October 2009 to market TCEP’s 2.5 million tons per year of CO2 to oil producers in the West Texas Permian Basin.

“This is the first of several CO2 off-take agreements with TCEP, and we are pleased to have negotiated this historic first one with a company that has a long and successful history of doing enhanced oil recovery in the Permian,” said Blue Strategies Executive Vice President Russell Martin.

Whiting Petroleum Corporation, a Delaware corporation, is an independent oil and gas company that acquires, develops and explores for crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids primarily in the Permian Basin, Rocky Mountains, Mid-Continent, Gulf Coast and Michigan regions of the United States. The Company’s largest projects are in the Bakken and Three Forks plays in North Dakota and its Enhanced Oil Recovery projects, which have historically used naturally occurring geological CO2 for injection in its EOR projects in Oklahoma and Texas.

Under the new agreement, Whiting will purchase 80 million cubic feet (80,000 Mcf/d) of compressed CO2 per day from TCEP, representing approximately 60 percent of TCEP’s total volume of captured CO2, during the first five years of TCEP’s operation, with gradually declining amounts and an option to extend the purchases thereafter. In the Permian Basin, approximately one additional barrel of oil can be recovered for each 6,000 cubic feet (6 Mcf) of compressed CO2 injected into the oil field. TCEP will begin delivering CO2 to Whiting when the plant commences operations in late 2014 or early 2015; construction is scheduled to begin at the end of this year.

“This is another important milestone for the Texas Clean Energy Project, coming on the heels of last month’s power purchase announcement with CPS Energy in San Antonio, “ said Donald Hodel, Chairman of Summit Power. “We now have sales commitments in place for all three of TCEP’s main commercial products – electric power, urea for fertilizer, and CO2 for enhanced oil recovery – and that is obviously key to getting this project underway.”

The 15-year Whiting-TCEP contract is historic because CO2 for EOR operations in the Permian Basin and elsewhere have generally been carried out with CO2 that is geological in origin, i.e. formed naturally in underground reservoirs in New Mexico and Colorado and brought to the surface by wells such as those used to produce natural gas. More than 3,000 miles of CO2 –dedicated pipeline currently transports and distributes geologic CO2 throughout the Permian Basin. Whiting will be the first in the Permian to purchase CO2 from a power project that will be produced through the coal-gasification process. Gasification allows the carbon to be stripped from coal, then captured and compressed, for deep underground sequestration in mature oil fields. Unlike conventional coal plants, TCEP will not burn coal but will instead use coal as a chemical feedstock to produce extremely low-carbon, high-hydrogen synthesis gas (“syngas”) for power production and the manufacture of urea fertilizer.

TCEP received a $450 million award in 2010 from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI), the Department’s effort to create a new generation of energy processes that sharply reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants and reduce America’s dependence on imported energy resources.

In oil fields such as Whiting’s, the injected CO2 mixes with the oil that is left behind in the primary oil-well production and the secondary water- injection stage. Approximately 40 percent of the initially injected CO2 remains trapped underground. The remainder comes to the surface with the oil, but is then recaptured, recompressed, and re-injected. Ultimately, some 99 percent of the injected CO2 can be permanently stored (i.e. geologically sequestered) deep underground many thousands of feet below the water table, with no leakage to the atmosphere.

“We are extremely pleased to be the first oil producer in West Texas to start using manmade CO2 from coal for enhanced oil recovery,” said Whiting CEO James Volker. “This shift from geologic to manmade CO2 in the oil fields is a significant step forward for both the power industry and the oil industry. We are proud to be affiliated with this project.”

About Summit Power Group, LLC 

Summit Power Group, LLC excels in the innovative development of electric power projects. Led by experienced professionals with an extensive knowledge of the energy industry in the U.S. and abroad, Summit has a remarkable track record of developing large, low-carbon energy projects with over 7,000 megawatts of electric power plants in operation, representing over $7 billion in investment, and over 2,000 megawatts in development or under construction.

About Blue Strategies, LLC 

Blue Strategies is a leading developer of CO2 projects involving the capture, compression and transportation of CO2. In addition, Blue Strategies works very closely with private and governmental agencies to develop procedures around assuring injected CO2 remains sequestered in the reservoir and meets the requirements for carbon offset registries. The management team has over 100 years of experience in managing physical CO2.

About Whiting Petroleum Corporation 

For more information on Whiting Petroleum Corporation, please visit the website www.whiting.com.

For more information contact: 

Laura Miller, Director of Projects, Texas, for Summit Power Group, at 214-763-0600 or lmiller@summitpower.com.

Matt Harmer, for Blue Strategies, at 801-438-1541 or mharmer@bluesource.com.

John B. Kelso, Director of Investor Relations, Whiting Petroleum Corporation, at 303-837-1661 or john.kelso@whiting.com.

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SAN ANTONIO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Summit Power Group’s Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP) will enter into a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the country’s largest municipally owned natural gas and electric utility, CPS Energy, which announced the agreement at a press conference today with San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro.

“We couldn’t be more delighted to be entering into a long-term purchase agreement with a utility company that truly understands the importance of securing ultra-low carbon coal’s place in the country’s future energy portfolio as long as it is clean, affordable and reliable”

CPS Energy President & CEO Doyle Beneby stated that the company will purchase 200MW of power from TCEP, a first-of-its-kind integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) 400 MW power/poly-gen plant that will capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide, 99 percent of the sulfur, more than 95 percent of the mercury, and eliminate more than 90 percent of the nitrogen oxides produced by the process – making it overall the cleanest coal-fueled power project ever permitted in Texas.

The power off-take arrangement marks a major milestone for TCEP, which has already marketed its other two major commercial products, urea fertilizer and compressed carbon dioxide for use in enhanced oil recovery in the West Texas Permian Basin, and plans to break ground in Penwell, Texas, outside Odessa by the end of the year, with a startup date in late 2014 or early 2015. TCEP received its final air quality permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) last December with no opposition or requests for a hearing. Summit Power was one of five clean technology companies introduced today by CPS Energy to an audience of San Antonio community and business leaders at the downtown campus of the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). CPS announced partnerships with the companies as part of its New Energy Economy vision and to help offset the mothballing of the utility’s coal-fired J.T. Deely Power Plant by 2018, about 15 years earlier than planned, with clean coal, solar, natural gas, and energy efficiency and conservation.

Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy applauded CPS’s endeavors. “San Antonio is stepping up to lead Texas and our nation into a clean energy future –and proving that investing in innovative technology to protect our health and the environment is also a great way to create jobs,” U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement released at the press conference.

Mayor Julian Castro has made it a priority of his administration to make San Antonio a hub for energy development and a recognized leader in clean energy technology. All five companies participating in Monday’s press conference announced economic development initiatives to support the Mayor’s vision; TCEP will open a customer relations office in San Antonio; partner with UTSA’s Sustainable Energy Research Institute; and bring to UTSA its Carbon Management Advisory Board, an independently funded group of scientists, academicians and environmentalists who will review and verify TCEP’s carbon capture and sequestration protocols.

Stated DOE’s Thomas Sarkus, a Division Director within the Office of Major Demonstrations at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), who attended Monday’s event: “The U.S. Department of Energy applauds CPS Energy for its progressive energy stance that includes voluntarily phasing out old coal plants and replacing them with cleaner, low-carbon technologies such as the Texas Clean Energy Project, a DOE-sponsored, breakthrough, clean-coal project.” TCEP was awarded $450 million by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2010. The award comprised funds from both the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) and the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

“We couldn’t be more delighted to be entering into a long-term purchase agreement with a utility company that truly understands the importance of securing ultra-low carbon coal’s place in the country’s future energy portfolio as long as it is clean, affordable and reliable,” said Eric Redman, President of Summit Power Group. “We have a model project that will change how the world views coal-fueled power and its ability to capture almost all its CO2, and CPS Energy’s involvement makes that possible.”

About Summit

Summit is a 20-year-old company based in Seattle, WA, that has developed more than 7,000 megawatts and billions of dollars worth of U.S. power projects, primarily natural gas-fired and wind energy, with solar power recently added through a photovoltaic (PV) solar joint venture called NorthLight with Norway-based Renewable Energy Corporation (REC). TCEP is Summit’s first project using coal as a feedstock, in this case for a coal gasification process that does not burn coal but instead converts the coal by chemical processes into clean-burning industrial gases and a pure stream of CO2 that is captured and sequestered.

For more information about the Texas Clean Energy Project (www.texascleanenergyproject.com) or Summit Power Group, contact Laura Miller, Summit Power’s Director of Projects, Texas, at 214-763-0600, or email lmiller@summitpower.com.
Contacts

Summit Power Group
Laura Miller, 214-763-0600
lmiller@summitpower.com

Morgantown, W.Va. — Under a newly signed memorandum of understanding, CPS Energy, a municipally owned utility serving San Antonio, Texas, will purchase electricity generated by the Texas Clean Energy Project,  clean-coal project funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The agreement marks an important milestone for the project and a significant increase in clean electric power sourcing by CPS.

The Texas Clean Energy Project was a third round selection under the Office of Fossil Energy’s Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI), a cost-shared collaboration between the Federal Government and private industry aimed at stimulating investment in low-emission coal-based power generation technologies through successful commercial demonstrations. In January 2010, DOE awarded a cooperative agreement to Summit Texas Clean Energy to develop the 8‑year project. The agreement spans the design, construction, and demonstration of an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant that can co-produce high-value products and capture carbon dioxide (CO₂). DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) implements the CCPI and manages its projects.

By mid 2014, the Texas Clean Energy Project will provide electricity and other high-value products from the new 400‑megawatt IGCC plant west of Odessa, Texas. The captured CO₂ will be used for enhanced oil recovery in the West Texas Permian Basin, a process that both prevents the greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere and enables more oil to be produced from regional oilfields.

By-products of energy production from the plant will not be wasted. Roughly 90 percent of the produced CO₂—approximately 3 million tons per year—will be captured and delivered to regional enhanced oil recovery sites. The plant will use CO₂ and a portion of the coal synthesis gas produced by the plant to make urea, a high-value chemical. Smaller quantities of commercial sulfuric acid, argon, and inert slag will also be marketed.

CPS Energy signed the memorandum as one of their many efforts to protect the environment by using a clean energy plan that includes coal power. To balance low utility bills for their customers with environmental responsibility, CPS uses a diverse mix of fuels to provide energy. The utility’s current fuel mix is 34.6 percent nuclear, 34.4 percent coal, 15 percent natural gas and oil, and 16 percent renewable energy, including wind and solar energy and landfill-generated methane gas. The Texas Clean Energy Project helps CPS meets its goal of providing reliable energy to meet their customers’ increasing energy demand while maintaining a healthy environment.

The Clean Coal Power Initiative and sponsorship of the Texas Clean Energy Project are part of DOE’s efforts to create a new generation of energy processes that sharply reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants and reduce the Nation’s dependence on imported energy resources. For more information, please visit NETL’s coal and power system’s website.

- End of Techline

For more information, contact:

Jenny Hakun, FE Office of Communications, 202-586-5616

Additional links:

Texas Clean Energy Project: http://www.texascleanenergyproject.com/

CPS Energy: http://www.cpsenergy.com/

Summit Power Group: http://www.summitpower.com/

Flanked by CPS Energy Board Chair Derrick Howard and President & CEO Doyle Beneby, Mayor Julián Castro raised the curtain today on new business prospects for San Antonio, as five clean technology businesses were introduced to an audience of San Antonio community and business leaders at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Downtown Campus. Agreements developed by CPS Energy with the featured companies include headquarters relocations, about 230 technical and professional jobs in the next few years, and funding for education initiatives as well as expanded UTSA partnerships.

After briefings last week in Washington, D.C., in which the Mayor and Beneby outlined the utility’s efforts, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Lisa P. Jackson commented, “San Antonio is stepping up to lead Texas and our nation into a clean energy future—and proving that investing in innovative technology to protect our health and the environment is also a great way to create jobs. Committing to cleaner sources of power will mean cleaner air for the families in San Antonio and new opportunities for San Antonio’s workforce. By sending a strong signal of the local government’s support for clean energy, San Antonio attracted innovative American businesses that will create jobs around technology that helps to keep the air clean. The Obama administration is working to send the same signal to companies around the world and ensure they bring their business and their jobs to our shores.”

During Monday’s announcement, which was carried live on www.NOWCastSA.com, Mayor Castro expounded on the city’s plans to become a hub for energy development.

“San Antonio has the opportunity to seize a mantle that no city in the U.S. holds today: to be the recognized leader in clean energy technology,” Mayor Castro said. “By building a critical mass around research and development that will grow and attract the brainpower of the 21st Century, San Antonio can be for the New Energy Economy what Silicon Valley is to software and what Boston is to biotech.”

The mayor’s comments followed an announcement by Beneby that the utility’s coal-fired J.T. Deely Power Plant will be mothballed by 2018, about 15 years earlier than planned. Generating a combined 871 megawatts (MW) of electricity, Deely’s two units were completed in 1977 and 1978 and built as part of an effort to diversify the utility’s portfolio that relied solely on natural gas at the time. Today, CPS Energy’s mix of generation resources is considered among the most diverse in the nation, including nuclear, coal, natural gas, wind and solar technologies.

“San Antonio is stepping up to lead Texas and our nation into a clean energy future — and proving that investing in innovative technology to protect our health and the environment is also a great way to create jobs. Committing to cleaner sources of power will mean cleaner air for the families in San Antonio and new opportunities for San Antonio’s workforce,” said Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “By sending a strong signal of the local government’s support for clean energy, San Antonio attracted innovative American businesses that will create jobs around technology that helps keep the air clean. The Obama administration is working to send the same signal to companies around the world and ensure they bring their business and their jobs to our shores.”

“The CPS Energy Board of Trustees set aggressive goals several years ago,” noted Board Chair Derrick Howard. “In 2010, we raised expectations by asking staff to increase the utility’s renewable resources to 20 percent, or 1,500 MW by 2020 and have 65 percent of our generation resources be low- or no-carbon emitting. We believe the plan announced today can propel us to reach these goals.”

Beneby went on to outline the concept of a New Energy Economy.

“With these agreements, we are leveraging our low-carbon and renewable energy resources to stimulate economic and educational development within our community. At the same time, we’re reducing power plant emissions by tens of thousands of tons per year—the equivalent of taking almost one million vehicles off our roads,” said Beneby. “At CPS Energy, we have the enviable position of having safe, affordable nuclear power and a new coal plant with the best available emissions control technology. These resources allow us to support the development of clean technologies to generate electricity, while maintaining rates among the lowest in the nation.”

Beneby introduced the CEOs of companies that will partner with CPS Energy to replace that electric demand and curb energy use by improving efficiency:

• Consert CEO Jack Roberts announced the relocation of that company’s headquarters from Raleigh, NC to San Antonio. The move is expected to bring 50 jobs by the first quarter of 2012, with additional jobs generated through the installation and use of the company’s sophisticated energy management software in as many as 140,000 San Antonio homes and businesses by 2015. CPS Energy launched a pilot program with Consert in 2010 and expects to broaden that pilot to 1,000 customers later this year. Using the Consert software, customers set user profiles through their home computers for heating and air conditioning systems, water heaters and pool pumps to manage their homes’ energy demands. Used in conjunction with other smart grid initiatives like advanced metering infrastructure, the program helps customers automate their energy conservation and manage their bills, while allowing the utility to conserve energy during periods of high use.
• GreenStar Executive Vice President Rod Gray announced the relocation of their headquarters from nearby Boerne, Texas to San Antonio, along with 35 jobs. While exhibiting a locally assembled street light that uses light-emitting diode (LED) technology, Gray explained that GreenStar will replace 25,000 street lights in San Antonio, beginning with downtown, improving the efficiency of decades-old infrastructure. The company projects growth to 50 jobs in 2012 and has committed $10 for every light manufactured in San Antonio to local education initiatives that focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy technology. This could equate to $1 million per year in education support over the next few years. Additionally, Philips Lumileds, who provides the LEDs within the GreenStar light, will help establish a Center of Excellence in LEDs at UTSA. Texas Instruments, who makes the advanced semiconductor technology for the lights, is working closely with the university to understand their needs and to augment the engineering curriculum with TI development tools for the labs.
• ColdCar USA CEO Paul Duran II announced the relocation of their headquarters and 35 of its 45 jobs from Boerne to San Antonio by December. The company assembles refrigerated trucks used to deliver food items direct to consumers. The company is transitioning its vehicles to electric and/or hybrid trucks, and CPS Energy will partner with ColdCar on the installation of electric charging stations for these vehicles. ColdCar has agreed to provide the utility research data from the vehicle charging.
• Summit Power President Eric Redman provided an overview of plans to provide 200 MW of purchased power to CPS Energy from a Summit Texas Clean Energy (STCE) coal-fired facility near Odessa, Texas. Construction of the clean-coal  plant is expected to begin in late 2011/early 2012 and be completed in late 2014/early 2015. The first-of-its-kind project captures 90 percent of its carbon dioxide and more than 95 percent of its mercury and sulfur and manufactures commercial products that include electricity, compressed CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, and urea fertilizer and sulfuric acid for farming. In addition to supplying power to CPS Energy through a 25-year agreement, STCE will locate its  customer relations office here, partner in research with the Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute (TSERI) at UTSA, and host its national Carbon Management Advisory Board in San Antonio.
• SunEdison CEO Carlos Domenech outlined plans for the solar developer to locate 30 MW of new solar generation in the CPS Energy service territory; a $300,000 commitment to work with CPS Energy to build an education center in San Antonio for primary and secondary students; and a $300,000 commitment to research and development primarily with UTSA, in collaboration with CPS Energy and the City of San Antonio. Twenty of the 30 MW planned for San Antonio will be located at the Dos Rios Water Treatment Plant owned by CPS Energy’s sister utility, the San Antonio Water System (SAWS). The second installation will be located in Somerset in southwest Bexar County.  SunEdison will open a regional office in San Antonio later this year to support the 30MW project and expanding business interests in Texas and the region.

Beneby closed the event by asking the audience to stay tuned for more. The selection of another solar provider is expected within 30 days, following a Feb. 1 request for proposals that resulted in 111 submissions from 38 respondents for another solar installation in San Antonio of up to 50-plus MW.

CPS Energy is the nation’s largest municipally owned natural gas and electric utility, providing service to approximately 717,000 electric customers and 325,000 natural gas customers in and around the City of San Antonio. The utility ranks among the nation’s lowest-cost energy providers while ranking number 1 in wind-energy capacity among municipally owned utilities.

– CPS Energy –