Babcock & Wilcox announced that it has been awarded a contract by NorthStar Clean Energy to conduct a Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) engineering study to convert a coal-fired power plant in Michigan to use biomass fuel and retrofit the plant with B&W?s SolveBright? carbon dioxide (CO2) capture process. The study is the first phase of a commercial-scale project partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Babcock & Wilcox Construction Co., LLC, will manage construction and mechanical scope of the study and commercial phase. NorthStar Clean Energy plans to eliminate CO2 emissions from the plant by converting the 75-megawatt TES Filer City Station power station in Filer City, Mich., to use sustainable biomass as fuel. The plant is jointly owned by NorthStar Clean Energy (a subsidiary of Jackson, Mich.-based CMS Energy Corporation) and Houston, Texas-based Tondu Corp.

The CO2 generated by the plant would be captured using B&W?s unique SolveBright post-combustion CO2 scrubbing process which provides for flexibility in the regenerable solvent used to isolate CO2 for sequestration or utilization.