A team led by Gas Technology Institute (GTI), Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®) and General Electric Global Research (GE-GR), along with the University of Wisconsin and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), is actively executing a project called “STEP” \[Supercritical Transformational Electric Power project\], to design, construct, commission, and operate an integrated and reconfigurable 10 MWe sCO~2~ \[supercritical CO~2~\] Pilot Plant Test Facility located at SwRI’s San Antonio, Texas, USA campus. The \$122\* million project is funded \$84 million by the US DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL Award Number DE-FE0028979) and \$38\* million by the team members, component suppliers and others interested in sCO~2~ technology. This project is a significant step toward sCO~2~ cycle based power generation commercialization and is informing the performance, operability, and scale-up to commercial facilities.

Significant progress has been made.  The design phase is complete (Phase 1).  This included design work and procurement, and now most major equipment is in fabrication.  These efforts already providing valuable learnings for technology commercialization.  A ground breaking was held in October of 2018 and in the summer of 2019 civil work progressed at the San Antonio, TX, USA project site. The project is well along in phase 2 to build and commission this facility. At the time of conference publication, major equipment will be in assembly at the site and the progress and learnings from these activities will be reported.  Supporting work on materials, process modeling, and test planning will also be presented.

Supercritical CO~2~ (sCO~2~) power cycles are Brayton cycles that utilize supercritical CO~2~ working fluid to convert heat into power. They offer the potential for higher system efficiencies than other energy conversion technologies such as steam Rankine or organic Rankine cycles, especially when operating at elevated temperatures. sCO~2~ power cycles are being considered for a wide range of applications including fossil-fired systems, waste heat recovery, concentrated solar power, and nuclear. An update from technical economic analyses will be presented showing the value of sCO2 power applications over incumbent technologies and explaining how the STEP project is supporting.

By the end of this 6-year project, the operability of the sCO~2~ power cycle will be demonstrated and documented starting with facility commissioning as a simple closed recuperated cycle configuration initially operating at a 500^o^C (932^o^F) turbine inlet temperature and progressing to a recompression closed Brayton cycle technology (RCBC) configuration operating at 715^o^C (1319 ^o^F).


The STEP 10 MWe sCO2 Pilot Demonstration Status Update

Division / Sponsor:
International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI)

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/GT/GT2020/volume/84058

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