$MEEC Technology Our mercury removal technolog
Post# of 104
Posted On: 03/20/2015 8:02:47 PM
$MEEC Technology
Our mercury removal technology and systems have been shown in long-term, full-scale trials on operating units to achieve mercury removal levels above the new MATS requirements and to do so with lower cost and plant systems impacts than typical PAC or BAC sorbent injection systems. Our technology was originally developed by the University of North Dakota’s Energy and Environmental Research Center (“EERC”). It was tested and refined on numerous operating coal-fired EGUs, with the founder of MES, Inc. participating with the EERC on these tests since 2008. The EERC Foundation obtained patents on this technology. MEEC has an “Exclusive Patent and Know-How License Agreement Including Transfer of Ownerships” for the exclusive world-wide rights to the commercial application of these related patents. In our agreement with the EERC Foundation, we pay an annual license maintenance fee plus royalties on operational systems and have the right to purchase the commercial application patent rights for a payment specified in the agreement. In 2013 and 2014, EERC and MEEC negotiated significant amendments to their agreement which strengthened the existing patent rights of MEEC, eliminated certain contract provisions and compliance issues and restructured license maintenance and royalty fee schedules and issued an equity interest in MEEC to EERC.
In 2010, we were awarded our first commercial contract to design, build and install our solution on two large (670MW each) coal units in the western part of the U.S. This was a multi-million dollar, three year renewable contract, which was awarded as a result of a competitive demonstration process. We invested more than $1.4 million in the capital equipment for this project. Our systems out-performed the contract guarantees in all operational areas during startup and testing and went into commercial operation at the start of 2012. The system is used for mercury control whenever the plant is in operation.
Early in 2014 MEEC signed an agreement with a major utility to provide mercury control system for their fleet of nine EGUs. Shortly thereafter, also in the 1 st half of 2014, we signed an agreement with two electric cooperatives to provide mercury control for each of their single, large coal units, while winning a new, three year contract extension with our first customer on their two units. In November 2014, we contracted on two units with a utility in the upper Midwest, bringing our total of EGUs under contract for MATS to 15 at year-end 2014. In May of 2014, we estimated that nine of our EGUs under contract at that time planned to be compliant with MATS in 2015. After our May 2014 estimates, seven of our contracted units received a one-year extension from their state EPAs to their compliance date. We currently expect four EGUs that we have under contract to be 2015 compliant units. Additional contract awards are anticipated in 2015, and can add to our number of EGUs needing to achieve compliance with MATS in 2015.
Our mercury removal technology and systems have been shown in long-term, full-scale trials on operating units to achieve mercury removal levels above the new MATS requirements and to do so with lower cost and plant systems impacts than typical PAC or BAC sorbent injection systems. Our technology was originally developed by the University of North Dakota’s Energy and Environmental Research Center (“EERC”). It was tested and refined on numerous operating coal-fired EGUs, with the founder of MES, Inc. participating with the EERC on these tests since 2008. The EERC Foundation obtained patents on this technology. MEEC has an “Exclusive Patent and Know-How License Agreement Including Transfer of Ownerships” for the exclusive world-wide rights to the commercial application of these related patents. In our agreement with the EERC Foundation, we pay an annual license maintenance fee plus royalties on operational systems and have the right to purchase the commercial application patent rights for a payment specified in the agreement. In 2013 and 2014, EERC and MEEC negotiated significant amendments to their agreement which strengthened the existing patent rights of MEEC, eliminated certain contract provisions and compliance issues and restructured license maintenance and royalty fee schedules and issued an equity interest in MEEC to EERC.
In 2010, we were awarded our first commercial contract to design, build and install our solution on two large (670MW each) coal units in the western part of the U.S. This was a multi-million dollar, three year renewable contract, which was awarded as a result of a competitive demonstration process. We invested more than $1.4 million in the capital equipment for this project. Our systems out-performed the contract guarantees in all operational areas during startup and testing and went into commercial operation at the start of 2012. The system is used for mercury control whenever the plant is in operation.
Early in 2014 MEEC signed an agreement with a major utility to provide mercury control system for their fleet of nine EGUs. Shortly thereafter, also in the 1 st half of 2014, we signed an agreement with two electric cooperatives to provide mercury control for each of their single, large coal units, while winning a new, three year contract extension with our first customer on their two units. In November 2014, we contracted on two units with a utility in the upper Midwest, bringing our total of EGUs under contract for MATS to 15 at year-end 2014. In May of 2014, we estimated that nine of our EGUs under contract at that time planned to be compliant with MATS in 2015. After our May 2014 estimates, seven of our contracted units received a one-year extension from their state EPAs to their compliance date. We currently expect four EGUs that we have under contract to be 2015 compliant units. Additional contract awards are anticipated in 2015, and can add to our number of EGUs needing to achieve compliance with MATS in 2015.
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