Hartford Business Journal

8 CONNECTICUT GREEN GUIDE • WINTER 2015 www.CTGreenGuide.com At its Clean Energy Lab, which opened to much fanfare in late August, the company's research- ers experiment with ways to cut down emissions at existing power plants while making them cheaper to operate. While Alstom works on technology for all potential fuels — including solar — the primary focus in Bloomfield is on fossil fuels, particularly the black sheep of the American power-fuel family: coal. "We are taking our knowledge of burning solid fuels and solving the emissions problem," said Joseph Pereira, global director of boilers for Alstom. "We believe this is transfor- mational technology." Coal is cheap and in abundance in America, Pereira said, making it the logical power-plant fuel of choice for generations. However, the rise of low-cost natural gas and the increasing amount of emis- sions regulations put on older power plants — especially those using coal or petroleum — have caused the us- age of coal-fired plants to dwindle, particularly in the Northeast with its cap-and-trade system on emissions. Through the end of September, coal accounted for 4 percent of the electric- ity generated in New England in 2015, compared to 48 percent for natural gas, according to regional power grid administrator ISO New England. "What we are seeing now is that the new facilities need to be as efficient as possible," said Dan Dolan, president of the New Eng- land Power Generators Association, which represents power plant own- ers. "It is extremely unlikely that another coal plant is built in New England, unless there is a major breakthrough in the technology." Alstom is addressing the efficien- cy and emissions issues with coal through technology it calls chemical looping combustion, where it seeks to emit nearly zero greenhouse gases by converting coal into steam and reusing the fuel and the waste in a regenerative loop, to maximize the power generated. The technology could be added to existing coal plants to make them Alstom HEADQUARTERS: Levallois-Perret, France CEO: Patrick Kron ANNUAL REVENUE: $23.4 billion DIVISIONS: Power generation, power transmission, rail transportation WORLDWIDE EMPLOYEES: 88,000 BLOOMFIELD EMPLOYEES: 30 GLOBAL DID YOU KNOW? Alstom manufactures the world's fastest train, the AGV, which can safely operate at up to 220 mph. CONNECTICUT DID YOU KNOW? The Alstom Clean Energy Lab is one block away from Thomas Hooker Brewing. SOURCE: ALSTROM Alstom tests all types of fuels and tech- nologies at its Bloomfield facility, but the focus is on coal. PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER The centerpiece of Alstom's Bloomfield facility is its six-story chemical looping combustion system. PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Green Fact: The only coal plant operating in Connecticut is the Bridgeport Harbor Generating Station. SOURCE: ISO NEW ENGLAND

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