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DOE moves forward with plans to fund research in 'coal plants of the future'

U.S. Department of Energy officials are moving forward with plans to encourage the development of "coal plants of the future" with three competitively funded research and development efforts that could result in the design, construction and operation of a coal-based pilot-scale power plant.

The DOE will fund the research projects in fiscal year 2019 through an effort it is calling Coal FIRST, which stands for the qualities it is seeking in the design of future coal plants: "flexible, innovative, resilient, small and transformative."

The agency previously announced it was interested in what it would take to build small, modular and highly efficient coal power plants and in May requested industry comment on the potential for coal plants that could generate "secure, stable and reliable power" more efficiently than today's conventional utility-scale coal power plants.

The existing fleet of coal-fired power plants are no longer the fuel of choice for power producers due in large part to sustained low natural gas prices, decreasing capital costs for building competing electricity generating operations and more frequent dispatch as load-following units, the DOE said in its announcement.

"Changes to the U.S. electricity industry are forcing a paradigm shift in how the nation's generating assets are operated," the DOE wrote in its announcement. "Coal-fired power plants optimized as baseload resources are being increasingly relied on as load-following resources to support electricity generated from intermittent renewable capacity, as well as to provide critical ancillary services to the grid."

The DOE says it envisions a future fleet of coal plants with overall plant efficiency of 40% or greater higher heating value at full load, between 50 MW and 350 MW of capacity, near-zero emissions, capable of high ramp rates, and other qualities that could encourage the proliferation of new coal-fired power plants in today's market.

The department is expected to announce a funding opportunity for cost-shared research and development projects focused on steam turbines that can be integrated into such plants in the second quarter of fiscal year 2019. A separate funding opportunity is expected in the third quarter of fiscal year 2019 that will address research and development of critical components and other "advanced approaches" needed to support a future coal plant.

While several experts have said they are skeptical about the potential for such technologies, coal companies such as Murray Energy Corp. have said they support the effort. An executive with a subsidiary of American Electric Power Co. Inc. said at a May industry conference that while there is some utility interest in such small modular coal plants, it would take several engineering breakthroughs to deploy those technologies.