Evaluation of efficiency improvements and performance of coal-fired power plants with post-combustion CO2 capture

The power sector needs to be decarbonised by 2050 to meet the global target for greenhouse gas emission reduction and prevent climate change. With fossil fuels expected to play a vital role in the future energy portfolio and high efficiency penalties related to mature CO2 capture technologies, this research aimed at evaluating the efficiency improvements and alternate operating modes of the coal-fired power plants (CFPP) retrofitted with post-combustion CO2 capture. To meet this aim, process models of the CFPPs, chilled ammonia process (CAP) and calcium looping (CaL) were developed in Aspen Plus® and benchmarked against data available in the literature. Also, the process model of chemical solvent scrubbing using monoethanolamine (MEA) was adapted from previous studies. Base-load analysis of the 580 MWel CFPP retrofits revealed that if novel CAP retrofit configurations were employed, in which a new auxiliary steam turbine was coupled with the boiler feedwater pump for extracted steam pressure control, the net efficiency penalty was 8.7–8.8% points. This was close to the 9.5% points in the MEA retrofit scenario. Conversely, CaL retrofit resulted in a net efficiency penalty of 6.7–7.9% points, depending on the fuel used in the calciner. Importantly, when the optimised supercritical CO2 cycle was used instead of the steam cycle for heat recovery, this figure was reduced to 5.8% points. Considering part-load operation of the 660 MWel CFPP and uncertainty in the process model inputs, the most probable net efficiency penalties of the CaL and MEA retrofits were 9.5% and 11.5% points, respectively. Importantly, in the CaL retrofit scenarios, the net power output was found to be around 40% higher than that of the CFPP without CO2 capture and double than that for the MEA retrofit scenario. Such performance of the CaL retrofit scenario led to higher profit than that of the 660 MWel CFPP without CO2 capture, especially if its inherent energy storage capability was utilised. Hence, this study revealed that CaL has the potential to significantly reduce the efficiency and economic penalties associated with mature CO2 capture technologies

Linking renewables and fossil fuels with carbon capture via energy storage for a sustainable energy future

Renewable energy sources and low-carbon power generation systems with carbon capture and storage (CCS) are expected to be key contributors towards the decarbonisation of the energy sector and to ensure sustainable energy supply in the future. However, the variable nature of wind and solar power generation systems may affect the operation of the electricity system grid. Deployment of energy storage is expected to increase grid stability and renewable energy utilisation. The power sector of the future, therefore, needs to seek a synergy between renewable energy sources and low-carbon fossil fuel power generation. This can be achieved via wide deployment of CCS linked with energy storage. Interestingly, recent progress in both the CCS and energy storage fields reveals that technologies such as calcium looping are technically viable and promising options in both cases. Novel integrated systems can be achieved by integrating these applications into CCS with inherent energy storage capacity, as well as linking other CCS technologies with renewable energy sources via energy storage technologies, which will maximise the profit from electricity production, mitigate efficiency and economic penalties related to CCS, and improve renewable energy utilisation

Combined heat and power generation with lime production for direct air capture

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been shown to be the least cost-intensive option for decarbonisation of the power, heat, and industrial sectors. Importantly, negative-emission technologies, including direct air capture (DAC), may still be required after near-complete decarbonisation of the stationary emission sources. This study evaluates the feasibility of a novel polygeneration process for combined heat and power using a solid-oxide fuel cell, and lime production for DAC (CHP-DAC) that could contribute towards decarbonisation of the power, heat, and industrial sectors. Evaluation of the thermodynamic performance indicated that such process can achieve the total efficiency and effective electric efficiency of 65%LHV and 60%LHV, respectively, while removing CO2 from the air at a rate of 88.6 gCO2/kWchh. With the total expenditure spread over a number of revenue streams, the product prices required for the CHP-DAC process to break even were found to be competitive compared to figures for the existing standalone technologies, even if there was no revenue from CO2 capture from the air. Moreover, the considered process was shown to be economically feasible, even under uncertainty. Hence, it can be considered as the carbon–neutral polygeneration process for sustainable and affordable production of heat, power, and lime that is negative-emission ready

Calcium looping combustion for high-efficiency low-emission power generation

High-temperature solid looping technologies, such as calcium looping and chemical looping combustion are regarded as emerging CO2 capture technologies with potential to reduce the net efficiency penalties associated with CO2 separation. Importantly, high-temperature operation of these technologies allows utilisation of the high-grade heat for power generation. Building on these emerging technologies, this study intended to establish a new class of high-temperature solid looping combustion technologies for high-efficiency low-emission power generation called calcium looping combustion. Such combustion technology comprises a combustor, as a primary source of heat for indirect heating in a calciner, and a carbonator where CO2 is separated from flue gas leaving the combustor; hence high-grade heat, which can be used for power generation, and a concentrated CO2 stream, which can be either utilised or permanently stored, are generated. The techno-economic performance of calcium looping combustion was comparable to a conventional coal-fired power plant. Depending on whether the concentrated CO2 stream is utilised elsewhere or permanently stored, calcium looping combustion was characterised with a net efficiency gain of 0.7%HHV points or a net efficiency penalty of 2.4%HHV, respectively. Additionally, the cost of CO2 avoided for calcium looping combustion was estimated to be 10.0 €/tCO2 and 33.9 €/tCO2, respectively. Therefore, similarly to chemical looping combustion, calcium looping combustion introduced in this study is a viable high-efficiency low-emission power generation technology that produces a concentrated CO2 stream with no efficiency penalty associated with CO2 separation

Techno-economic feasibility assessment of CO2 capture from coal-fired power plants using molecularly imprinted polymer

Mature CO2 capture technologies would reduce the net thermal efficiency of the coal-fired power plant by 7–13% points, leading to an electricity cost increase of at least 60%. To minimise the energy-intensity of CO2 capture, novel technologies and CO2 capture materials are being developed. This study assessed the techno-economic feasibility of the CO2 capture system using acrylamide-based molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) sorbent in a 580 MWel coal-fired power plant retrofit scenario. Under the initial design basis, the net efficiency penalty and the energy penalty of the MIP retrofit scenario were estimated to be 5.3%HHV points and 14.1%, respectively. Furthermore, the cost of CO2 avoided was estimated to be 29.3 £/tCO2. Such techno-economic performance was found to be superior to the CO2 capture system using chemical solvents. The parametric study revealed that the thermodynamic performance of the MIP retrofit scenario is mainly affected by the sorbent capacity, as the net efficiency penalty was found to increase from 4.4 to 8.9%HHV points on reduction of the sorbent capacity from 1 to 0.2 mmol CO2/g. Moreover, the economic performance was not only found to be affected by sorbent capacity, but primarily on the cyclic performance of the MIP sorbent. It was shown that the cost of CO2 avoided would increase linearly with increase of the MIP sorbent make-up at a rate of 6.8 £/tCO2 per 0.1% of sorbent make-up

Economic feasibility of calcium looping under uncertainty

An emerging calcium looping process has been shown to be a promising alternative to solvent scrubbing, which is regarded as the most mature CO2 capture technology. Its retrofits to coal-fired power plants have the potential to reduce both energy and economic penalties associated with the mature CO2 capture technologies. However, these conclusions have been made based on the deterministic outputs of the economic models that have not considered uncertainties in the model inputs. Therefore, this study incorporates a stochastic approach into the economic analysis of the retrofit of such emerging CO2 capture technology to the coal-fired power plant. The stochastic analysis revealed that levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) and specific total capital requirement were highly affected by the uncertainty in the input variables to the process and economic models. The most probable values for these key economic performance indicators were shown to fall between 75 and 115 €/MWelh, and 2100 and 2300 €/kWel,gross, respectively. Interestingly, the most probable LCOE values for the coal-fired power plant will fall between 50 and 150 €/MWelh. This indicated that the calcium looping retrofit scenario can become economically favoured, mainly due to the high economic penalties incurred by unabated coal-fired power plant associated with carbon tax. Importantly, the outputs of the stochastic economic assessment aligned well with the deterministic results reported in the literature. As the latter were generated using different sets of assumptions regarding the process and economic models, the stochastic approach to the economic assessment can minimise the impact of the model assumptions on estimates of the key economic parameters. Moreover, by indicating the probability of particular outputs, as well as ranking the model input variables according to their influence on the key economic performance, such analysis would allow making more insightful decisions regarding further funding and development of the calcium looping process. Finally, use of the stochastic approach in the economic feasibility assessment enables a more profound and reliable comparison of the different calcium looping retrofit configurations, as well as benchmarking different CO2 capture technologies

Environmental life-cycle assessment of waste-coal pellets production

Industrial decarbonization is crucial to keeping the global mean temperature <1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Although unabated coal use needs to be phased out, coal is still expected to remain an important source of energy in power and energy-intensive industries until the 2030s. Decades of coal exploration, mining and processing have resulted in ~30 billion tonnes of waste-coal tailings being stored in coal impoundments, posing environmental risks. This study presents an environmental life-cycle assessment of a coal-processing technology to produce coal pellets from the waste coal stored in impoundments. It has been shown that the waste-coal pellets would result in the cradle-to-gate global warming of 1.68–3.50 kgCO2,eq/GJch, depending on the source of electricity used to drive the process. In contrast, the corresponding figure for the supply of conventional coal in the US was estimated to be 12.76 kgCO2,eq/GJch. Such a reduction in the global-warming impact confirms that waste-coal pellets can be a viable source of energy that will reduce the environmental impact of the power and energy-intensive industries in the short term. A considered case study showed that complete substitution of conventional coal with the waste-coal pellets in a steelmaking plant would reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions from 2649.80 to 2439.50 kgCO2,eq/tsteel. This, in turn, would reduce the life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions of wind-turbine manufacturing by ≤8.6%. Overall, this study reveals that the use of waste-coal pellets can bring a meaningful reduction in industrial greenhouse-gas emissions, even before these processes are fully decarbonized

Process modelling and techno-economic analysis of natural gas combined cycle integrated with calcium looping

Calcium looping (CaL) is promising for large-scale CO2 capture in the power generation and industrial sectors due to the cheap sorbent used and the relatively low energy penalties achieved with this process. Because of the high operating temperatures the heat utilisation is a major advantage of the process, since a significant amount of power can be generated from it. However, this increases its complexity and capital costs. Therefore, not only the energy efficiency performance is important for these cycles, but also the capital costs must be taken into account, i.e. techno-economic analyses are required in order to determine which parameters and configurations are optimal to enhance technology viability in different integration scenarios. In this study the integration scenarios of CaL cycles and natural gas combined cycles (NGCC) are explored. The process models of the NGCC and CaL capture plant are developed to explore the most promising scenarios for NGCC-CaL integration with regards to efficiency penalties. Two scenarios are analysed in detail, and show that the system with heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) before and after the capture plant exhibited better performance of 49.1% efficiency compared with that of 45.7% when only one HRSG is located after the capture plant. However, the techno-economic analyses showed that the more energy efficient case, with two HRSGs, implies relatively higher cost of electricity (COE), 44.1€/MWh, when compared to that of the reference plant system (33.1€/MWh). The predicted cost of CO2 avoided for the case with two HRSGS is 29.3 €/ton CO2

Techno-economic feasibility assessment of calcium looping combustion using commercial technology appraisal tools

Calcium looping combustion (CaLC) is a new class of lowCO2emission technologies for thermochemical conversion of carbonaceous fuels that can help achieve the emissions reduction targets set out in the Paris Agreement. Compared to mature CO2 capture technologies, which cause net efficiency penalties higher than 7% points, CaLC results in a net efficiency penalty of 2.9% points. However, a thorough economic assessment of CaLC needs to be undertaken to evaluate its economic viability. The levelised cost of electricity is commonly used to assess the economic performance of clean energy systems. However, this method does not account for commercially important parameters, such as tax, interest, and depreciation charges. This study aimed to improve the reliability and accuracy of economic assessments of clean energy systems by implementing the net present value (NPV) approach. This approach was applied to assess the economic performance of two concepts of the CaLC-based power plant with either the conventional steam cycle (SC) or the supercritical CO2 cycle (s-CO2) for heat utilisation along with the bottom-up approach to total capital cost estimation. A parametric study for both concepts was also conducted to assess the impact of the key thermodynamic parameters on the economic performance. Although the s-CO2 case with revised assumptions was shown to result in a 1%-point lower net efficiency compared to the SC case, its break-even cost of electricity was lower by 0.81 €/MWh. Further improvements of the techno-economic performance can be sought by optimisation of the s-CO2 cycle structure

From post-combustion carbon capture to sorption-enhanced hydrogen production: A state-of-the-art review of carbonate looping process feasibility

Carbon capture and storage is expected to play a pivotal role in achieving the emission reduction targets established by the Paris Agreement. However, the most mature technologies have been shown to reduce the net efficiency of fossil fuel-fired power plants by at least 7% points, increasing the electricity cost. Carbonate looping is a technology that may reduce these efficiency and economic penalties. Its maturity has increased significantly over the past twenty years, mostly due to development of novel process configurations and sorbents for improved process performance. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the calcium looping concepts and statistically evaluates their techno-economic feasibility. It has been shown that the most commonly reported figures for the efficiency penalty associated with calcium looping retrofits were between 6 and 8% points. Furthermore, the calcium-looping-based coal-fired power plants and sorption-enhanced hydrogen production systems integrated with combined cycles and/or fuel cells have been shown to achieve net efficiencies as high as 40% and 50–60%, respectively. Importantly, the performance of both retrofit and greenfield scenarios can be further improved by increasing the degree of heat integration, as well as using advanced power cycles and enhanced sorbents. The assessment of the economic feasibility of calcium looping concepts has indicated that the cost of carbon dioxide avoided will be between 10 and 30 € per tonne of carbon dioxide and 10–50 € per tonne of carbon dioxide in the retrofit and greenfield scenarios, respectively. However, limited economic data have been presented in the current literature for the thermodynamic performance of calcium looping concepts