Techno-economic assessment of combined hydrogen & power co-generation with carbon capture: The case of coal gasification

Abstract

The gasification technology has multiple key advantages for future low carbon power generation scenario e.g. reduced energy and cost penalties for CO2 capture, multi-fuel multi-product operation capability, ability to process lower grade fuels, plant flexibility, etc. This paper is assessing the updated most important techno-economic aspects of IGCC power plant equipped with pre-combustion CO2 capture. Several key design options were assess in view of techno-economic indicators: selection of the gasification reactor, chemical vs. physical gas-liquid absorption used for CO2 capture, F and H-class gas turbines used for the combined cycle power block, flexible hydrogen and power co-generation, etc. Evaluated coal-based gasification concepts generate 400–600 MWe net power with a flexible hydrogen output from zero up to 300 MWth with 90% carbon capture rate. The similar design without carbon capture was also consider as a base case to quantify the technical and economical modifications induced by the CO2 capture step. As the techno-economical results show, the optimised IGCC plant (using dry fed entrained flow gasifier, H-class gas turbine, physical solvents, flexible hydrogen and power co-generation, etc.) provides improved results. In conclusion, the IGCC with pre-combustion capture is one promising technology for the future low-carbon economy.