POWER June 2021 - 11

GLOBAL MONITOR
technology risk, " as well as a " high reliability and a competitive
life cycle cost, " the company said.
Looking ahead, Highview Power will leverage $70 million
from its first growth capital round of funding, which it closed
this February, to develop a " late-stage pipeline of over 4 GWh
of projects across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. " Cavada
noted this is in addition to its current spring 2021 portfolio of 11
projects, a combined 700 MWh.
Investors participating in the recent growth capital funding
round include Janus Continental Group, whose UK-headquartered
independent power producer subsidiary Great Lakes
Africa Energy has licensed Highview Power's CRYOBattery
technology and plans to co-develop renewable-plus-storage
projects across the Great Lakes and Southern Africa regions.
Global engineering, procurement, and construction firm TSK,
meanwhile, says it is working with Highview Power to develop
long-duration energy storage systems using the company's
energy storage solution in Spain, the Middle East, and South
Africa. Highview Power, notably, will also launch a " new capital
raise " in the summer 2021 that is " 10 times larger than
what we did last year, " to bolster its growing pipeline of " equity
ready " projects, Cavada said.
According to Colin Roy, chairman of the Highview Power
board and a seed investor, these efforts cater to a tremendous
need and demand for long-duration energy storage. " Leading
utilities are starting to issue [requests for proposals] for 10
hours of storage to be cycled every day, " he noted. " Grid operators
are starting to issue long-term contracts for the provision
of synchronous stability services and constraint management.
This is what is needed to make the energy transition a realistic
proposition. And these things liquid air does better than any
other storage system. "
-Sonal Patel is senior associate editor for POWER.
Japan Ushers in New Era for IGCC Coal Power
The Nakoso integrated coal gasification combined cycle (IGCC)
plant, a much-watched power project in Japan's Fukushima
prefecture because it incorporates a pioneering advanced coal
gasification technology, began commercial operations on April
16, following its handover to owner Nakoso IGCC Power GK by
a Mitsubishi Power-led consortium.
As with all IGCC power plants, the 543-MW Nakoso IGCC
facility (Figure 5) combines coal gasification in a furnace-to
derive syngas, a mixture of primarily hydrogen and carbon
monoxide-and gas and steam turbines to generate power.
But at the Nakoso IGCC facility, the gasifier uses air-blown
technology, essentially relying on a reaction between coal and
air to generate the combustible syngas.
According to Mitsubishi Power, which manufactured the
air-blown IGCC system, the gasifier is based on a two-stage
entrained bed, which has a combustor in the lower chamber
and a reductor in the upper chamber (Figure 6). " In the combustor,
coal and char are burned, and high-temperature gas is
generated, " it explained. " In the reductor, the coal is gasified
in the high-temperature gas. Securing the syngas calories necessary
for gas turbine combustion, the gasifier melts ash and
discharges it smoothly during [the] combustion stage, " thereby
achieving two roles at the same time, it said.
Mitsubishi Power's technology derives from nearly four
decades of development, operation, and validation, said the
company, which is a subsidiary of Japanese technology giant
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In 2013, Mitsubishi Power
wrapped up a successful demonstration of the air-blown techJune
2021 | POWER
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nology at the 250-MW IGCC unit at Joban Joint Power Co.'s
Nakaso Power Plant Unit 10 nearby in Iwaki, Fukushima, and
declared it commercially operable. The Nakoso Unit 10 plant
" set a record for 3,917 hours of continuous operation, " Mitsubishi
Power reported at the time.
In September 2014, the company and partners Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries Engineering Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corp.,
and Mitsubishi Power Environmental Solutions bagged a major
order from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) for two 500-MWclass
IGCC plants at Joban Joint Power's Nakoso plant as well
as at TEPCO's own Hirono Power Station in Futaba-gun. The
projects, TEPCO said, would help Fukushima prefecture to promote
local industrial recovery following the 2011 earthquake,
tsunami, and nuclear plant disaster.
Mitsubishi Power said in April that compared to the smaller
Nakoso Unit 10, Nakoso IGCC's efficiency has been " substantially
enhanced " to reach 48% net thermal efficiency on a
lower heating value (LHV) basis. One reason is that the plant
adopts a configuration-similar to that at the Hirono plant-in
which " the gas turbine is combined with a steam turbine that
operates using the steam generated by a waste heat recovery
boiler fueled by waste gas, " the company noted.
For Mitsubishi Power, commercial start at the Nakoso IGCC
plant marks a new pathway to achieve " effective use of resources,
environmental conservation, and improve decarbonization. "
It said, for example, that its advanced IGCC system is
10% to 15% more efficient than a 600C-class ultrasupercritical
(USC) coal-fired unit.
Those efficiency gains translate into carbon cuts. " While the
global average for CO2
emissions from coal-fired power plants
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