Life cycle cost assessment of biomass co-firing power plants with CO2 capture and storage considering multiple incentives

Abstract

Realizing the 1.5 °C target of the Paris Agreement and reaching China's carbon neutrality by 2060 will most likely rely on the deployment of negative emissions technologies, especially biomass energy with CO2 capture and storage (BECCS). Co-firing biomass and coal in power plants with CCS is an efficient measure for deep decarbonization in the energy sector. Various incentives are currently implemented to compensate for the heavy economic burden of this technology portfolio, which has severely limited its large-scale application. We account for the levelized costs of electricity of ten co-firing plants from a life cycle perspective and optimize the best combination of three incentives (e.g., carbon price, tax credit, and feed-in tariff) to achieve cost-competitiveness under a goal of minimum policy burden. The results obtained reveal that power plants that use biomass energy with CCS are not currently economically viable in the absence of incentive measures. Biomass co-firing plants both with and without CCS should preferably select feed-in tariffs and tax credits, respectively, to improve their overall cost-competitiveness. However, the current policy constraints are not sufficient to meet the break-even levels required. Rational planning incentives have become a key option to improve the economic viability of BECCS technology and promote its development under existing conditions. Our results provide critical insights for designing a mitigation strategy in China's energy sector while laying out an important reference for achieving economically negative carbon emissions in other industry sectors.