Emissions

Calpine moves forward with carbon capture demo project at combined-cycle plant in California

The project would use ION’s ICE-21 solvent to capture the CO2 and sequester it permanently more than a half a mile underground in saline geologic formations.
Calpine moves forward with carbon capture demo project at combined-cycle plant in California
(Calpine's Sutter Energy Center. Source: Calpine.)

Calpine has executed a cost share agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations for a full-scale carbon capture demonstration project at the Sutter Energy Center, a natural gas combined-cycle plant in California.

The Sutter Decarbonization Project would be designed to capture 95% of carbon emissions from Sutter Energy Center. Calpine now plans to begin the first phase of the DOE cooperative agreement, which will support the engineering and design of the project.

Calpine is working with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) to support its 2030 Zero Carbon Plan through the project. Other partners include ION Clean Energy and 1PointFive Sequestration.

Sutter Energy Center is located in Yuba City, California. The 550 MW combined-cycle plant became commercially operable in 2001.

In December 2023, we first reported that the Sutter Decarbonization Project would receive up to $270 million in DOE funding.

The project would use ION’s ICE-21 solvent to capture the CO2 and sequester it permanently more than a half a mile underground in saline geologic formations. It would be the first in the world to deploy an air-cooling system at a carbon capture facility, which would eliminate the use of cooling water and significantly minimize freshwater usage.

Calpine also recently executed the first phase of its cost sharing agreement for the Baytown Decarbonization Project, a similar CCS demo project in Baytown, Texas.

“Calpine is grateful for the DOE’s commitment to working with Calpine to advance this important technology and believes that this is a recognition of the quality and strength of Calpine’s CCS program,” said Alex Makler, Calpine’s Senior Vice President, West Region.

The future adoption of carbon capture and storage likely depends on a variety of factors, like changes in the cost to capture CO2, the availability of pipeline networks and storage capacity for transporting and storing CO2, federal and state regulatory decisions and the development of clean energy technologies that could affect the demand for CCS.

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