The Cost of Carbon Capture and Storage for Natural Gas Combined Cycle Power Plants

2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 3076-3084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward S. Rubin ◽  
Haibo Zhai
Author(s):  
Ioannis Hadjipaschalis ◽  
Costas Christou ◽  
Andreas Poullikkas

In this work, a technical, economic and environmental analysis concerning the use of three major power generation plant types including pulverized coal, integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) and natural gas combined cycle, with or without carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) integration, is carried out. For the analysis, the IPP optimization software is used in which the electricity unit cost and the CO2 avoidance cost from the various candidate power generation technologies is calculated. The analysis indicates that the electricity unit cost of IGCC technology with CCS integration is the least cost option with the lowest CO2 avoidance cost of all candidate technologies with CCS integration. Further investigation concerning the effect of the loan interest rate on the economic performance of the candidate plants revealed that up to a value of loan interest of approximately 5.7%, the IGCC plant with CCS retains the lowest electricity unit cost. Above this level, the natural gas combined cycle plant with post-combustion CCS becomes more economically attractive.


Author(s):  
M Lucquiaud ◽  
P Patel ◽  
H Chalmers ◽  
J Gibbins

A number of natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power stations recently permitted in the UK have been required to be CO2 capture ready so that carbon capture and storage can be retrofitted once it is commercially viable (or legally required). Several options for future CO2 capture from NGCC units can be envisaged including post-combustion capture technology using flue gas scrubbing with aqueous solvents. When an NGCC plant is designed to be ready for a retrofit with post-combustion capture, one of the most important technical considerations is the steam extraction pressure and flow to provide the energy necessary for solvent regeneration. This is determined by the choice of solvent used, but new solvents are being developed and the exact future requirements, in perhaps 10–20 years time, cannot be predicted. Ways in which designs for the steam cycle of NGCC plants can cope with this challenge are presented. Several alternatives to mitigate the loss of power output of NGCC plants retrofitted with post-combustion capture and to achieve improved plant flexibility are also assessed and compared.


Author(s):  
Andrea Ciani ◽  
John P. Wood ◽  
Anders Wickström ◽  
Geir J. Rørtveit ◽  
Rosetta Steeneveldt ◽  
...  

Abstract Today gas turbines and combined cycle power plants play an important role in power generation and in the light of increasing energy demand, their role is expected to grow alongside renewables. In addition, the volatility of renewables in generating and dispatching power entails a new focus on electricity security. This reinforces the importance of gas turbines in guaranteeing grid reliability by compensating for the intermittency of renewables. In order to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals, power generation must be decarbonized. This is where hydrogen produced from renewables or with CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) comes into play, allowing totally CO2-free combustion. Hydrogen features the unique capability to store energy for medium to long storage cycles and hence could be used to alleviate seasonal variations of renewable power generation. The importance of hydrogen for future power generation is expected to increase due to several factors: the push for CO2-free energy production is calling for various options, all resulting in the necessity of a broader fuel flexibility, in particular accommodating hydrogen as a future fuel feeding gas turbines and combined cycle power plants. Hydrogen from methane reforming is pursued, with particular interest within energy scenarios linked with carbon capture and storage, while the increased share of renewables requires the storage of energy for which hydrogen is the best candidate. Compared to natural gas the main challenge of hydrogen combustion is its increased reactivity resulting in a decrease of engine performance for conventional premix combustion systems. The sequential combustion technology used within Ansaldo Energia’s GT36 and GT26 gas turbines provides for extra freedom in optimizing the operation concept. This sequential combustion technology enables low emission combustion at high temperatures with particularly high fuel flexibility thanks to the complementarity between its first stage, stabilized by flame propagation and its second (sequential) stage, stabilized by auto-ignition. With this concept, gas turbines are envisaged to be able to provide reliable, dispatchable, CO2-free electric power. In this paper, an overview of hydrogen production (grey, blue, and green hydrogen), transport and storage are presented targeting a CO2-free energy system based on gas turbines. A detailed description of the test infrastructure, handling of highly reactive fuels is given with specific aspects of the large amounts of hydrogen used for the full engine pressure tests. Based on the results discussed at last year’s Turbo Expo (Bothien et al. GT2019-90798), further high pressure test results are reported, demonstrating how sequential combustion with novel operational concepts is able to achieve the lowest emissions, highest fuel and operational flexibility, for very high combustor exit temperatures (H-class) with unprecedented hydrogen contents.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2161-2173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca L. Siegelman ◽  
Phillip J. Milner ◽  
Eugene J. Kim ◽  
Simon C. Weston ◽  
Jeffrey R. Long

As natural gas supplies a growing share of global primary energy, new research efforts are needed to develop adsorbents for carbon capture from gas-fired power plants alongside efforts targeting emissions from coal-fired plants.


Author(s):  
Maria Elena Diego ◽  
Jean-Michel Bellas ◽  
Mohamed Pourkashanian

Post-combustion CO2 capture from natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants is challenging due to the large flow of flue gas with low CO2 content (∼3–4%vol.) that needs to be processed in the capture stage. A number of alternatives have been proposed to solve this issue and reduce the costs of the associated CO2 capture plant. This work focuses on the selective exhaust gas recirculation (S-EGR) configuration, which uses a membrane to selectively recirculate CO2 back to the inlet of the compressor of the turbine, thereby greatly increasing the CO2 content of the flue gas sent to the capture system. For this purpose, a parallel S-EGR NGCC system (53% S-EGR ratio) coupled to an amine capture plant using MEA 30%wt. was simulated using gCCS (gPROMS). It was benchmarked against an unabated NGCC system, a conventional NGCC coupled with an amine capture plant (NGCC+CCS), and an EGR NGCC power plant (39% EGR ratio) using amine scrubbing as the downstream capture technology. The results obtained indicate that the net power efficiency of the parallel S-EGR system can be up to 49.3% depending on the specific consumption of the auxiliary S-EGR systems, compared to the 49.0% and 49.8% values obtained for the NGCC+CCS and EGR systems, respectively. A preliminary economic study was also carried out to quantify the potential of the parallel S-EGR configuration. This high-level analysis shows that the cost of electricity for the parallel S-EGR system varies from 82.1–90.0 $/MWhe for the scenarios considered, with the cost of CO2 avoided being in the range of 79.7–105.1 $/tonne CO2. The results obtained indicate that there are potential advantages of the parallel S-EGR system in comparison to the NGCC+CCS configuration in some scenarios. However, further benefits with respect to the EGR configuration will depend on future advancements and cost reductions achieved on membrane-based systems.


2007 ◽  
Vol 1041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Dones ◽  
Christian Bauer ◽  
Thomas Heck ◽  
Oliver Mayer-Spohn ◽  
Markus Blesl

AbstractThe NEEDS project of the European Commission (2004-2008) continues the ExternE series, aiming at improving and integrating external cost assessment, LCA, and energy-economy modeling, using multi-criteria decision analysis for technology roadmap up to year 2050. The LCA covers power systems suitable for Europe. The paper presents environmental inventories and cumulative results for selected representative evolutionary hard coal and lignite power technologies, namely the Ultra-Supercritical Pulverized Combustion (USC-PC) and Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technologies. The power units are modeled with and without Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The three main technology paths for CO2 capture are represented, namely pre-combustion, post-combustion, and oxy-fuel combustion. Pipeline transport and storage in geological formations like saline aquifers and depleted gas reservoirs, which are the most likely solutions to be implemented in Europe, are modeled for assumed average conditions. The entire energy chains from fuel extraction through, when applicable, the ultimate sequestration of CO2, are assessed, using ecoinvent as background LCA database.The results show that adding CCS to fossil power plants, although resulting in a large net decrease of the CO2 effluents to the atmosphere per unit of electricity, is likely to produce substantially more GHG than claimed by near-zero emission power plant promoters when the entire energy chain is accounted for, especially for post-combustion capture technologies and hard coal as a fuel. Besides, the lower net power plant efficiencies lead to higher consumption rate of non-renewable fossil fuel. Furthermore, consideration of the full spectrum of environmental burdens besides greenhouse gas (GHG) results in a less definite picture of the energy chain with CCS than obtained by just focusing on GHG reduction.


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