 Optimization of carbon-capture-enabled coal-gas-solar power generationPhilip G. Brodrick, Charles A. Kang, Adam R. Brandt and Louis J. Durlofsky Energy, 2015, vol. 79, issue C, 149-162 Abstract: Computational optimization is used to determine the optimal design and time-varying operations of a carbon dioxide capture retrofit to a coal-fired power plant. The retrofit consists of an amine-based temperature-swing absorption system, to which process steam is supplied from an auxiliary unit. Two candidate auxiliary heat sources are explored: natural gas and solar thermal. The NPV (net present value) of the retrofitted facility is maximized to determine which auxiliary system is preferable, under a variety of economic conditions. Optimized NPV is found to be most sensitive to the price of natural gas and the electricity price. At an 8% real discount rate, without renewable energy incentives, natural gas prices must be high (in excess of 10 USD/GJ) for a solar thermal design to be preferable, and electricity prices must reach ≈55 USD/MWh in order for solar-thermal-based designs to have a positive NPV. Incentives such as investment tax credits and solar power purchase agreements can make solar-thermal-based designs preferable to natural-gas-based designs under certain circumstances. Keywords: Optimization; Carbon capture; Solar thermal; Natural gas combined cycle (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:79:y:2015:i:c:p:149-162 DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2014.11.003 Access Statistics for this article Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser More articles in Energy from Elsevier |
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