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Siemens Energy, Inc. has been chosen to provide the coal gasification technology for the Taylorville Energy Center (TEC), the 730-megawatt (gross) coal generating plant being developed near Taylorville, Illinois. The Taylorville Energy Center (TEC) will be one of the nation's first commercial-scale, coal gasification plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) capability.

Tenaska, managing partner for the $3.5 billion project, has signed equipment contracts and licensing agreements with Siemens for four gasifiers that will convert Illinois coal into substitute natural gas. The gas will be used for electricity generation or fed into the interstate natural gas pipeline system.

TEC's integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) technology also will capture and provide storage for at least 50 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO₂) that would otherwise enter the atmosphere.

"Siemens is pleased to have been chosen to support Tenaska's goal of employing Illinois coal to provide reliable electricity in an environmentally clean manner," said Michael Suess, CEO of the Fossil Power Generation Division of Siemens Energy. "By capturing and storing at least 50 percent of the CO₂ it produces, TEC will have emissions comparable to a natural gas-fueled plant. Achieving such a dramatic reduction in emissions by a coal-fed plant is a vital step in the global effort to combat climate change. Siemens is glad to be a major contributor to this important breakthrough."

TEC is in advanced development, with the front end engineering and design (FEED) work required by the Illinois Clean Coal Portfolio Standard law under way. The FEED is expected to include more than 100,000 work hours by the time its facility cost report is presented to the Illinois Commerce Commission in early 2010. TEC is projected to be completed and in operation in 2014.