Mississippi Power Co.’s nearly $7 billion Kemper County energy facility should be fully operational on lignite coal by Jan. 31, the utility said late Friday in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Mississippi Power, a unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co., had estimated the plant would have a January in-service date in early December. This was preceded by a series of missed projected deadlines.
Mississippi Power said in its January filing that it is experiencing challenges with the plant’s gas clean-up systems for one of its gasifiers.
The plant has two gasifiers, which convert lignite coal into a synthetic gas (syngas) and are part of what the company calls the plant’s clean-coal technology. Once fully operational, the company expects to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 65 percent.
Though each gasifier has previously produced electricity using syngas, the facility must have “integrated operation of both gasifiers,” Mississippi Power said through its filing.
At one point, the plant, which is now running on natural gas, was supposed to go into full operation running on syngas by May 2014.
As for what the public pays, there is a $2.88 billion cap on what Mississippi Power ratepayers can pay for the plant. Any increase beyond that depend on the Mississippi Public Service Commission’s approval.
Mississippi Power estimates that any extension of the in-service date beyond Jan. 31 would cost about $25 million to $35 million per month. The utility also said that additional costs may be required if any further equipment or design issues emerge.
“If integrated operation of both gasifiers does not occur by mid-January, the expected in-service date and related cost estimate for the Kemper IGCC may require further revision,” the utility said its filing.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.