Intensive energy penalty caused by CO2 separation process is a critical
obstacle for retrofitting power plant with carbon capture technology.
Therefore, the concept of utilizing solar energy to assist solvent
regeneration for post-combustion carbon capture power plant is proposed
recently as a promising pathway to compensate the efficiency reduction
derived from CO2 capture process. However, the feasibility of solar-assisted
post-combustion (SPCC) technologies largely depends on the types of CO2
absorbent, categories of solar thermal collectors, areas of solar field and
the integration of thermal energy storage system. Therefore, this paper
conducts a comparative analysis on MEA-based and NH3-based SPCC power plants
employing two types of solar collectors, i.e the vacuum tube (VT) and the
parabolic through collector (PTC), with climate data of Tianjin City.
Levelized costs of electricity and cost of CO2 removed are comparatively
studied for both SPCC configurations. Results show that the proposed SPCC
configurations are economically viable when the price of vacuum the tube
(VT) is lower than 86.64$/m2 and 117.29$/m2 for the MEA-based and NH3-based
SPCC power plant respectively. Meanwhile, the price of PTC should be less
than 111.12$/m2 for the MEA-based and 114.51$/m2 for the NH3-based SPCC
power plant. It is indicated that employing the VT for chilled NH3-based
SPCC power plant offers a promising approach to reduce the energy penalty
with attractive economic performance.