When U.S. consumers were confronted in 1999 and 2000 with blackouts and brownouts of electric power in major regions of the country, Congress responded by directing the Department of Energy to issue "a general request for proposals for the commercial scale demonstration of technologies to assure the reliability of the nation's energy supply from existing and new electric generating facilities…." The Congress transferred $95 million from previously appropriated funding for the 1986-93 Clean Coal Technology Program.

DOE ANNOUNCEMENTS 10.28.01 -Winners Announced 04.19.01 - 24 Proposals Received 02.06.01 - DOE Issues Solicitation

On February 6, 2001, the Energy Department issued a solicitation for proposals under the program it called the "Power Plant Improvement Initiative" (PPII). By the April 19, 2001, deadline, 24 candidate projects had been submitted for government cost-shared financial assistance.

On September 28, 2001, the Department selected eight projects valued at more than $110 million with $51 million requested from the federal government. The projects currently ongoing (as of June 2006) include:

• TIAX LLC, Location TBD (formerly Arthur D. Little, Inc.), proposed to outfit a boiler with a hybrid pollution control system to reduce nitrogen oxides. The hybrid system would lower the cost of reducing NOx by integrating three established NOx reduction technologies: natural gas reburning, selective non-catalytic reduction, and selective catalytic reduction. The Energy Department's share of the 38-month project is nearly $15 million; TIAX would provide $15.6 million. This project is in negotiations.

• CONSOL Energy Inc., South Park, PA, planned to demonstrate a multi-pollutant control system to reduce NOx, sulfur dioxide (SO2), mercury, acidic gases, and fine particles from smaller coal plants for less money than it costs to control NOx and SO2 separately. Among the innovations CONSOL plans to install at the AES Greenridge Power Plant near Dresden, NY, is a catalytic NOx reduction technology that works inside the plant's ductwork, a low-NOx combustion technology that burns coal mixed with biomass, and a flue gas scrubber that is less complex and nearly half the cost of conventional systems. The government's share of the 54-month project will be $14.5 million; $18.3 million will be provided by CONSOL and its project partners. This project is currently in negotiations.

• Otter Tail Power Company, Fergus Falls, MN, proposed to install a technology designed to capture up to 99.9999% of the fly ash particles emitted from a coal boiler. To achieve the high capture rate, the company has integrated a fabric filter system (or "baghouse") with an electrostatic precipitator (which uses electrically charged plates to attract ash particles) in a single unit. The 36-month demonstration is taking place at the company's Big Stone Power Plant in South Dakota. The Energy Department's $6.5 million cost-share will be matched by $6.9 million in private sector funding. This project is current nearing completion.

• Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, Hays, KS, proposed to install ultra-low-NOx burners with other combustion controls to demonstrate a pollution control concept that has never been tried in power plants burning western subbituminous coals such as those from Wyoming's Powder River Basin. The pollution controls are being tried out in a 48-month project at the company's power station in Garden City, KS. The Energy Department will fund $2.8 million with Sunflower Electric Power providing $3.0 million. This project is currently nearing completion.

• Tampa Electric Company, Tampa, FL, has applied (at its Big Bend Power Station in Appolo Beach, FL) a neural network system to determine when and how best to dislodge soot that can build up inside a boiler and degrade performance. While sootblowers are common in utility boilers, most are manually activated under preset rules or the operator's judgment. Computer controlled sootblowing technology will permit the cleaning of internal boiler surfaces with improved power plant performance. The 36-month project has received just under $1 million from the Energy Department with Tampa Electric providing almost $1.5 million. This project has been completed.

• Universal Aggregates LLC, South Park, PA, is demonstrating a system that converts the sludge from power plant scrubbers into light-weight masonry blocks or concrete. Today more than 80% of this sludge is disposed of in landfills, and the practice is becoming an increasingly contentious public issue. This 43-month project in King County, VA, could offer an alternative by turning a pollutant into a commercially-valuable product. The Energy Department is funding $7.2 million while the company will provide $12.3 million. This project is currently in operation.