Polish carbon capture

Global power generation group,

, has teamed with

to provide carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology for the Belchatów power plant in

.

In the first phase, Alstom will construct a pilot CCS plant at the facility to capture approximately 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

The pilot will be jointly run by Alstom and Elektrownia Belchatów and is scheduled to begin by mid-2011.

Following this, Alstom and PGE will work on a larger CCS project to capture carbon produced by Elektrownia Belchatów’s 858MW lignite-fired unit.

This is expected to be operational by 2015.

The Belchatow CCS initiative is a candidate project for the EU Flagship Programme for Carbon Capture and Storage.

Philippe Joubert, Alstom’s executive vice-president and president, Power Systems, said: ‘This Memorandum of Understanding has enabled Alstom and its partners to play a key role in reducing Poland’s carbon emissions.

'The agreement is integral to Alstom’s global CO₂ strategy, with the large-scale capture plant at Belchatow providing the last step to full commercialisation of our amine-based CO₂ capture technology.'