Technical and economic analysis of amine-based carbon capture and sequestration at coal-fired power plants

This study assesses the overall cost of a typical 600 MW supercritical coal-fired power plant using amine adsorption Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), which is a relatively mature CCS technology. Both newly constructed and existing power plants are considered in this analysis. The existing power plants, which are the most representative coal-fired power plants in China, are grouped into three scenarios based on whether they perform desulfurization and their desulfurization rates. An Integrated Environmental Control Model (IECM) is used to conduct the simulation and calculations for the three scenarios. This study reveals that the CO ₂ capture cost for a newly constructed power plant is 150 yuan/t, whereas, for an existing CCS retrofitted power plant, this cost ranges from 162 to 185 yuan/t. Furthermore, the avoided CO ₂ cost ranges from 258 to 350 yuan/t for the three scenarios considered in this analysis. The simulation results also reveal that the sulfur concentration in the exhaust gases of a power plant has an especially critical impact on the capture and electricity generation costs. Controlling the sulfur concentration in the exhaust gases is therefore an important measure for reducing the CCS capture cost. As CCS requires large initial capital investments, the influences of some financial parameters are assessed. The uncertainty analysis shows that as depreciation increases from 0.12 to 0.20, the average cost of avoided CO ₂ increases from 214 yuan/t to 517 yuan/t, which shows that the depreciation rate plays an important role in the economic assessment of carbon costs.