Southern Company, Mississippi Power Company and Southern Generating Technologies recently signed a formal letter of intent to license the technology used at Mississippi’s Kemper ​Coal Project(Kemper County energy facility​)​ to Alps Energy, a South Korean energy company.

“Today is a very special day,” Mississippi Power Co. CEO Ed Holland said at a press conference announcing the agreement, which will allow Alps Energy to use the Kemper coal gasification process. “This is a demonstration of our strong commitment at Kemper to sharing this technology, not just with the United States, but with the world. This is a way forward for coal as an energy source. It’s a proud day and an exciting day for us.”

“We are very pleased to be part of this announcement,” Kwang Ouk Bang, the chairman of Alps Energy, said through a translator.

According to Mississippi Power Co. CEO Ed Holland, Southern Company and KBR have proprietary ownership of the Transport Integrated Gasification (TRIG™) process, which involves converting low grade coal into gas, which is then burned to provide electricity. The process was developed over the last two decades at a research facility in Wilsonville, Alabama.

This agreement comes after Southern Company Services and Korea Electric Power Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding 15 October to jointly explore the deployment of clean coal power generation and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies.

Ed Holland stated “We are marketing the technology across the world with KBR.”