ATLANTA, GA. -- Southern Company today announced that its Gulf Power subsidiary will be the first utility in the nation to launch a comprehensive Mercury Research Center to study different methods of reducing mercury emissions from power plants.
Gulf Power will build the research center at its Plant Crist electric generation plant, which is located north of Pensacola, Florida. The research center will install and test various state-of-the-art technologies to assess long-term performance and reliability in reducing mercury emissions. Gulf Power is also open to other companies or researchers suggesting or conducting new or different treatment technologies at the center.
“We’ve made a lot of progress with testing technologies to control mercury emissions,” said Charles Goodman, senior vice president of research and environmental policy for Southern Company. “While we’ve achieved promising results, much needs to be done. It is important for us to continue to take a leadership role in finding the right solutions to address mercury emissions.”
The Mercury Research Center at Plant Crist is scheduled to be in full operation by November. The first phase of testing at the center will evaluate five different advanced control technologies using a portion of the plant’s emissions for the research. Technologies scheduled for initial testing are estimated to cost $5 million and will include a selective catalytic reduction unit, a rotary air pre-heater, a baghouse, an electro-static precipitator, and a wet limestone scrubber. As the research continues other methods may be discovered and added to further research.
Plant Crist’s research center expands Southern Company’s ongoing mercury control research that already has been conducted at company power plants in Alabama and Georgia. The first project, at the E.C. Gaston electric generation plant, which is owned and operated by its Alabama Power subsidiary, was chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the nation’s first full-scale mercury control testing. Plant Gaston’s award-winning technology, developed by ADA-Environmental Solutions, tested the effectiveness of activated carbon injection technology using a baghouse to control mercury emissions. The three-year study wrapped up in the summer of 2004.
Last fall, testing began at Southern Company’s Plant Yates, which is owned and operated by the company’s Georgia Power subsidiary, of the activated carbon injection technology with an electrostatic precipitator (ESP) to further advance research on a different plant configuration and coal type. Testing is still ongoing.
In 2005, Plant Yates will also participate in a DOE pilot-scale mercury control test using MERCAP™, an EPRI patented technology. Southern Company has already tested MERCAP™ on a small slipstream at Alabama Power’s Plant Gaston.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), mercury emissions from power plants represent about 1% of the total global, airborne emissions.
“Currently, there are no stand-alone commercially available technologies to control mercury emissions,” added Goodman. “By assessing various methods, we hope to gain a better understanding of today’s best available control technologies in playing a role in the reduction of mercury emissions.”
With more than 4 million customers and nearly 39,000 megawatts of generating capacity, Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE: SO) is the premier super-regional energy company in the Southeast and a leading U.S. producer of electricity. Southern Company owns electric utilities in four states, a growing competitive generation company, an energy services business and a competitive retail natural gas business, as well as fiber optics and wireless communications. Southern Company brands are known for excellent customer service, high reliability and retail electric prices that are 15 percent below the national average. Southern Company has been named three consecutive years No. 1 on Fortune magazine’s “America’s Most Admired Companies” list in the Electric and Gas Utility industry. Southern Company has been ranked the nation’s top energy utility in the American Customer Satisfaction Index five years in a row. Southern Company has more than 500,000 shareholders, making its common stock one of the most widely held in the United States. Visit the Southern Company Web site at www.southerncompany.com.
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