first published week of: 10/10/2016
A look at the Kemper County Coal Plant from the top. The plant will be tasked with mining lignite coal a few hundred yards away from the plant. That coal is moved through a process that will convert it to syngas.
Mississippi Power Co. is adding another month to the construction schedule and another $62 million to the cost of the power plant it’s building in Kemper County.
Atlanta-based Southern Co., the parent of the electrical utility, announced Monday that it’s pushing back the completion date from Oct. 31 to Nov. 30. Because every month’s delay prompts more construction and interest costs, the total price of the plant is now nearly $6.9 billion. Documents filed with the Mississippi Public Service Commission show Mississippi Power will absorb $33 million of the increase, but customers could be asked to pay the other $29 million. Customers could ultimately pay as much as $4.2 billion for the plant, although regulators will decide the final amount. The plant and associated coal mine were originally supposed to cost $2.9 billion at most, and earliest estimates were lower. Stockholders have absorbed $2.6 billion in losses.
Kemper is designed to use two gasifiers to convert soft lignite coal into synthetic gas burned to generate electricity. In a Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said that when it took the first gasifier to start making synthetic gas offline in August for inspection, it took longer than expected to remove ash. Maybe more importantly, the company said it wants more time to achieve sustained capacity, test removal of chemicals from the gas and synchronize both gasifiers to run at once. The second gasifier began operating in September. Kemper is designed to remove carbon dioxide from the synthetic gas, cutting carbon dioxide emissions to the level of a similarly sized natural gas plant. That’s why the federal government has given Kemper hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. continued…