Carbon-capture Plant Coming Back into Service
Petra Nova Facility Mothballed Since 2020
The Petra Nova plant is coming back online.
The Petra Nova plant is coming back online. | NRG Energy
The Petra Nova carbon-capture facility’s owner has told ERCOT that it plans to bring the plant out of mothballs and into year-round service in June.

The Petra Nova carbon-capture facility’s owner has told ERCOT that it plans to bring the plant out of mothballs and into year-round service in June.

Japanese oil and gas company JX Nippon filed a notification May 28 with the grid operator that it intends to bring the world’s largest carbon-capture plant back June 28. The plant has been shut down since 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the face of slumping oil prices. (See NRG to Mothball Petra Nova CCS Plant.)

Petra Nova has a summer capacity of 71 MW and was retrofitted at a cost of $1 billion to capture carbon from one of the nearby W.A. Parish Generating Station’s coal-fired units. NRG Energy, which operates Parish, must complete repairs on the unit Petra Nova is connected to before it can return to service.

NRG and JX were partners in the carbon-capture project. JX bought NRG’s 50% stake for $3.6 million and closed the deal shortly after Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act last August. The legislation includes a significant increase for the carbon-capture tax credit.

Petra Nova went online in December 2016. It sequestered more than 3.9 million tons of carbon dioxide in three years, despite frequent outages.

Also last week, Calpine said four gas units at its Deer Park Energy Center near Houston will be converted from generation resources to settlement-only, transmission self-generators as of Oct. 27. The resources each have a summer seasonal rating of 190 MW.

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