Gassnova, the Norwegian National Centre for Gas Power Technology, has awarded financial support to DNV’s development of a guideline that shall ensure the quality of CO2 capture technologies for natural gas power generation.

“It is important to arrive at accepted standards and methods for assessing such technologies. DNV’s recommended practice will help energy scientists in the first phases of development, as well as investors and operators manage the risk of failure and lack of intended quality in new CO2 capture technologies,” says Bjørn-Erik Haugan, executive director of Gassnova.

According to an International Energy Agency scenario, energy demand is projected to rise by over 60% until 2030. By then, more than 80% of the energy sources will be fossil fuels. The negative environmental effects of continued use of fossil fuels can only be offset by the development of new technology solutions. Limiting CO2 emissions from energy generation is a key to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, and hence carbon capture and storage could play an essential role in the development of a more sustainable energy system. However, technology presently available is costly, entails high operating costs, or is not proven to work in large scale commercial installations.

Need for qualification of CO2 technologies

The Norwegian government established Gassnova to spearhead the mission of shepherding these technologies to market. “As new technologies are initiated and developed, authorities and stakeholders will create requirements and regulations governing how these technologies function,” says Bjørn-Erik Haugan. “Therefore, we are funding DNV to develop new guidelines to qualify technologies for natural gas power generation that capture or limit emission of CO2. Employment of such accepted working practices by project developers, oil and power companies will reduce risks when implementing new technologies,” says Bjørn-Erik Haugan.

These new guidelines will be based in DNV’s existing recommended practice ‘Qualification Procedures for New Technology’, which supports energy companies in their effort to develop, test, and implement new technology. Since 2001, the practice has been employed in more than 30 successful qualification programmes for new technology.

Must reduce risk for failure and emissions

“World-wide, there are several substantial efforts underway to develop new technologies that will reduce CO2 emissions during power generation from natural gas,” says Håvard Thevik, DNV’s Project Manager. “However, technology researchers, operators and authorities must minimise the risk for failure. Major risk issues related to gas-fired power plants with CO2 capture are the plant uptime and the actual capture ratio of CO2. Another key issue is related to operating costs of new CO2 capture technology, such as degradation of absorbants or possible high maintenance costs to keep CO2 capture