On the first leg of a week-long fact finding visit to Italy and Germany, delegates from Xi’an City based Thermal Power Research Institute met with the IFRF and ENEL in Livorno today.  TPRI is one of the principle research institutions within the Chinese power sector and one of its key objectives is to reduce pollutants from Chinese fossil-fired power plants.  Today’s talks were aimed at exploring the three organisations’ common interest in oxy-coal combustion technologies for CO2 capture.  The potential for collaborative projects was also discussed.

In existence since 1951, TPRI was transferred in 2001 from a government-sponsored institution into a state-owned scientific enterprise which is jointly owned by China’s 5 major power generation corporations   The organization, which employs over 1200 staff, 89% of whom are engineers and technicians, has undertaken a good number of key, government sponsored R/D programs as well as being very active in many international cooperation projects.  TPRI enjoys an excellent reputation for its qualified technical service and consultation and its footprints can be found in almost of the Chinese large-capacity power plants.

TPRI is well equipped with the most advanced instrumentations and testing facilities, such as coal and ash physical/chemical characteristic analyzers, 1MW pulverized coal combustion test plant, 1 MW CFB test plant, pressurized pc gasification and hot gas cleaning test facilities, performance and evaluation test instrumentation and chemical and materials laboratories etc.

During today’s meeting, IFRF Director Leonardo Tognotti outlined the IFRF’s previous research into coal combustion.  Representatives from ENEL’s Engineering and Innovation Research Division described three current research programmes in Carbon Capture and Sequestration.

Mr. Zhao Zongrang, leader of the TPRI delegation is no stranger to the IFRF, having enjoyed a three month training stint at IJmuiden in 1994 as part of an EU China Technical Cooperation Programme.  At that time, says Mr Zongrang, he was deeply impressed by the experimental activity at the IFRF.  The renewed contact should be of benefit to all concerned.