Flexible strategies to facilitate carbon capture deployment at pulverised coal power plants

Abstract

This paper assesses operational strategies for deploying flexible CO2 capture at three generic black coal fired power plants with distinct dispatch profiles. Flexible operating modes involving constant partial CO2 capture, part-time capture, and variable capture are examined in conjunction with seasonal effects of summer and winter. The three generic dispatch profiles are selected to represent typical black coal base load power plants in Australia and black coal power plants in Germany and perhaps future UK base load power plants in 2011. The results show that for a generic 700MW subcritical power plant, operating under variable capture mode results in the highest amount of CO2 captured and avoided and thus the lowest cost. The estimated cost of CO2 avoided ranges from about $70 to $150 per tonne of CO2 avoided using variable capture, increasing to $186 to $226 per tonne of CO2 avoided for constant partial capture. The flexible capture modes investigated can reduce the overall CO2 emissions of a power plant by up to 50%.