Sutter Decarbonization Project

The Sutter Decarbonization Project, developed by Calpine Corporation, is a CO₂ storage project located at the Sutter Energy Center near Yuba City in California’s Sacramento Basin. The project will capture CO₂ from the existing 573 MW natural gas combined-cycle plant and inject it into the Starkey Clean Sandstone of the Starkey Storage Complex, a Late Cretaceous reservoir with favorable porosity and permeability. The injection interval is overlain by the Capay Formation shale, providing the primary confining zone, with the Winters Formation and Sacramento Shale as additional seals. The project received DOE OCED Carbon Capture Demonstration funding as one of the first large-scale CCS projects in California. It is designed to capture and store ~1.75 million metric tons of CO₂ per year, equivalent to a total capacity of ~22 million metric tons over 12 years. Planned infrastructure includes a new capture facility at the power plant and pipeline transport to the injection site. Monitoring will include seismic surveys, groundwater sampling, fiber-optic pressure/temperature sensing, and annular integrity testing, supported by a DOE CarbonSAFE stratigraphic test well to further refine geologic models. The project represents one of the first U.S. demonstrations of natural gas + CCS at commercial scale, advancing California’s climate goals while providing critical data on CO₂ storage in the Sacramento Basin.