FuelCell Energy Inc. (Danbury, CT) has received approval from the US Department of Energy's (DOE, Washington, DC) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL, Washington, DC) to advance the demonstration of a 2MW fuel cell power plant operating on coal-derived gas by moving the fuel cell site from the Kentucky Pioneer Energy Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) site to the Wabash River Energy, IGCC site. Both Projects are owned by Global Energy Inc. (Cincinnati, OH).
Contract modifications approved by the DOE and Global Energy include appropriation of funding for the remainder of the project and the site relocation. The Kentucky Pioneer Energy site is still in development while the existing Wabash River Energy site is in operational status. Site construction for the fuel cell is still subject to final environmental approval. The remaining project cost will be $32.3 million, with 50 percent of the cost shared by the DOE.
"We are very pleased that the DOE and Global Energy could shift the site of this project so that our demonstration DFC power plant can begin more than two years earlier," said FuelCell Energy President and CEO Jerry Leitman. "This 2MW unit will follow the 1MW unit that will be sent to the King County, WA, municipal waste-water treatment facility later this year. We will operate this unit at our Torrington facility on natural gas before it is shipped to the site in the second half of 2003, to begin the one-year demonstration on coal-derived gas."
