The Power Systems Development Facility -- Current status

Southern Company Services, Inc. (SCS) has entered into a cooperative agreement with the US Department of Energy (DOE) to build and operate the Power Systems Development Facility (PSDF), currently under construction in Wilsonville, Alabama, 40 miles southeast of Birmingham. The objectives of the PSDF are to develop advanced coal-fired power generation technologies through testing and evaluation of hot gas cleanup systems and other major components at the pilot scale. The performance of components will be assessed and demonstrated in an integrated mode of operation and at a component size readily scaleable to commercial systems. The facility will initially contain five modules: (1) a transport reactor gasifier and combustor, (2) an advanced pressurized fluidized-bed combustion (APFBC) system, (3) a particulate control module, (4) an advanced burner-gas turbine module, and (5) a fuel cell. The five modules will initially be configured into two separate test trains, the transport reactor train (2 tons/hour of coal feed) and the APFBC train (3 tons/hour of coal feed). In addition to a project description, the project design and construction status, preparations for operations, and project test plans are reported in this paper