The project will use the Carburetted Gas Turbine (CGT) technology, developed by EDL for the utilisation of ultra lean fuels in gas turbines.

 

The Australian Greenhouse Office, the Commonwealth Government agency responsible for greenhouse matters, has awarded an $11 million grant to the project under the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Program. This program targets investment in cost effective projects and technologies for the reduction of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

 

A prototype 2.5MW CGT is presently undergoing operational testing at the EDL power plant at BHP's Appin mine in New South Wales. Since 1996, EDL has operated the 97 MW project at Appin and Tower, to harness the huge quantity of waste gas the two mines generate. EDL said the CGT prototype has now demonstrated that the technology can be successfully applied on a commercial scale.

 

"Energy Developments already owns and operates the world's largest coal mine methane power generation project at the BHP owned Appin and Tower coal mines in New South Wales", said EDL executive director, Paul Whiteman. "The CGT technology provides potential for the Company to greatly expand this part of its business globally".

 

The CGT technology allows very dilute mixtures of methane in air (typically 1.5% methane in air) to be used as fuel for power generation. Conventional combustors cannot burn such lean fuels and mines have typically either flared waste gases or simply vented them to the atmosphere. The quantity of methane used to generate 1MW is roughly equivalent to 50,000 tonnes a year of carbon dioxide which would otherwise be vented.

 

In collaboration with Anglo Coal, development work has begun to install four CGT units at German Creek, the first in 2002, a second in 2003 and the last two in 2004. Each unit will be capable of generating around 2.5 MW, for a combined capacity of 10MW. Low quality waste methane, emitted as a by-product of underground coal mining, will fuel the plant.

 

Anglo Coal has looked at various approaches to utilising the gas its mines generate but none have proven to be cost effective to date. The Australian Greenhouse Office financing has provided an incentive to promote increased greenhouse gas mitigation.

 

The combustion technology on which the CGT is based has been licensed from Isentropic Systems Limited, in which Energy Developments has a 30% shareholding. A wide range of other low quality gas fuels can also be exploited using CGT technology.