Elsevier

Renewable Energy

Volume 147, Part 1, March 2020, Pages 1188-1198
Renewable Energy

Comparative evaluation of two biomass direct-fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2019.09.047Get rights and content

Highlights

  • A CLOF-CCS power plant is proposed, modeled and compared with BAFP-CCS.

  • The efficiency and the cost of electricity of CLOF-CCS are 35.7% and 0.0522$/kWh.

  • The efficiency and the cost of electricity of BAFP-CCS are 31.5% and 0.0601$/kWh.

  • The CLOF-CCS annual power yield and CO2 removal are 1443.7 × 109 kWh and 1.191 × 109 t.

  • The BAFP-CCS annual power yield and CO2 removal are 1241.8 × 109 kWh and 1.159 × 109 t.

Abstract

The biomass direct-fired power plant with carbon capture and sequestration is promising to remove CO2 from air whilst generate electricity. However, the efficiencies of such power plants are usually low, and the life cycle CO2 emission of such power plants is seldom determined. To solve these issues, a novel chemical looping oxy-fired power plant with carbon capture and sequestration is proposed in this work. The proposed system is then modeled and compared with the conventional biomass air-fired plant in terms of thermodynamics and economics. All the sub-unit models of the two power plants are validated by reported data in literature. Sensitivity analyses are then implemented to investigate the effects of different key operation parameters on the system essential performance indicators. Under the optimum conditions, the power generation efficiency, the levelized cost of electricity, the CO2 capture rate, the annual power generation and the annual CO2 mitigation of the proposed system (or the conventional system) are 35.7% (31.5%), 0.0522$/kWh (0.0601$/kWh), 100% (98%), 1443.7 × 109 kWh/year (1241.81 × 109 kWh/year) and 1.191 × 109 t/year (1.159 × 109 t/year), respectively. The key findings of this work are of reference value for the construction, operation and optimization of the biomass direct-fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration.

Introduction

With the advent of fears about climate change, increasing efforts have now been paid on removing CO2 from the atmosphere during power generation [1]. Thereinto, the concept of bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS) provides a compelling route [2] to generating electric power whilst removing CO2 from air, not only because biomass is the fourth largest energy resource after coal, oil and gas [3], but also because it is renewable and carbon neutral on account of photosynthesis. As one simple but representative scenario of BECCS, the biomass direct-fired power plant with CCS is the most promising alternative, mainly due to better technological reliability and maturity [4]. Thereby, this type of biomass based power plant has been widely studied by researchers worldwide.

Kalina [4] analyzed the operational parameters of the commercial organic Rankine cycle cogeneration unit integrated with biomass-fired boiler and municipal heating network. The net electric efficiency of the system was specified to be 18.7%. Ali [5] investigated the performance of an 800 MWe biomass direct-fired power plant integrated with the amine-based CO2 capture unit and the CO2 compression system. The plant was fed with the US forestry residue and the electric efficiency was about 28%. Abdelhady [6] analyzed the techno-economic feasibility of electric power generation from rice straw in Egypt without CCS. The thermal efficiency of the power plant was around 24.3% and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) was around 0.063$/kWh. Keller [7] evaluated the performance of a chemical looping combustion based power plant with Japanese woody biomass as feedstock. It was found that the electric efficiency was about 26.2% without CO2 compression, and the use of chemical looping combustion could save 17% of the entire power plant cost per tonne of CO2 captured. Pröll [8] analyzed the biomass-based combined heat and power generation with different carbon capture approaches. It was found that the maximum electric efficiency of the power plant with amine-based CO2 capture was 27% while that of chemical looping combustion based power plant was 31.4%. Cuellar [9] investigated the performance of power plants fed with different biomass. The plant electric efficiency was about 30% without CCS, and the LCOE was above 0.15 $/kWh with CCS when the CO2 price was lower than 60 $/tonne. Sebastián [10] compared the performance of the biomass-direct fired power plant against the performance of the biomass co-fired power plant. It was found that if the net electric efficiency of the biomass fired power plant is higher than 29%, the CO2 emission decrease could be greater than that of the biomass cofiring scenario. Afgan [11] compared the biomass direct-fired power plant with other renewable power generation systems, and found that the electric efficiency, the electricity cost and the CO2 emission of the biomass fired power plant were about 30%, 0.084 $/kWh and −0.4 kg/kWh, respectively. It was then concluded that the biomass power plant was promising to meet the economic and environment constrains in the selection of new energy sources.

From the literature review, it is found that there are still issues that blocks the popularization and long term operation of the biomass direct-fired power plants with or without CCS. First, such power plants usually suffer low efficiency and high LCOE. The chemical looping technology can improve the power plant efficiency. However, for the chemical looping combustion of solid fuels like coal or biomass, additional gasification and fluidization agent like H2O is needed to enhance the char conversion and maintain the hydrodynamics in the fuel reactor, which consumes additional energy besides the power consumption by the oxygen carrier during O2 releasing. In addition, the oxygen carriers can encounter the issues of separation from ash and the deactivation by ash contamination [12]. Second, the annual power generation and the life cycle CO2 emission of the biomass direct-fired power plants with CCS are rarely investigated, so the effective CO2 mitigation potential of these power plants is not known precisely.

To solve these issues and fill up the research gap, the following work is implemented. First, to improve the electric efficiency of the biomass direct-fired power plant, the chemical looping technology is adopted according to literature review. However, to avoid the adverse effect of ash on the oxygen carriers, the chemical looping air separation (CLAS) technology is chosen rather than the chemical looping combustion, and a chemical looping oxy-fired power plant with CCS (CLOF-CCS) is proposed. Second, the annual potential of power generation and CO2 mitigation of CLOF-CCS are investigated.

To fully understand the characteristics and advantages of the CLOF-CCS system, the system is then systematically modeled and comprehensively compared with the conventional biomass air-fired plant with CCS (BAFP-CCS). The thermodynamic and economic models for the key subunits of the two power plants are first elaborated and validated against reported data. Then, sensitivity analyses are implemented for the two power plants to reveal the impacts of different operation parameters on the system performance. Finally, the power generation and CO2 mitigation potentials of the two power plants are evaluated. Correspondingly, the innovation of the manuscript includes three aspects. First, a novel BAFP-CCS is proposed to improve the electric efficiency of such kind of power plants. Second, detailed thermodynamic and economic analyses are implemented for BAFP-CCS so that the system operation property and the levelized cost of electricity can be known precisely. Third, the life cycle CO2 emission and the annual power generation of the proposed power plant are assessed so that the CO2 mitigation potential of the power plant can be determined. The key findings of this work are of reference value for the construction, operation and optimation of the biomass direct-fired power plants with CCS.

Section snippets

Process description and basic methodology

The schematic of BAFP-CCS is depicted in Fig. 1. Biomass is burnt with preheated air in the boiler to generate the high pressure super-heated steam which is further expanded in the extracting and condensing steam turbine to convert the thermal energy to work through Rankine cycle. Meanwhile, the depleted flue gas from the boiler successively goes through an electrostatic precipitator, a flue gas desulfurizer (FGD) and a monoethanolamine (MEA) unit to remove ash, sulfur and CO2, respectively.

Results and discussion

After validating all the key subunits, the properties of the integrated BAFP-CCS and CLOF-CCS systems are then comprehensively studied and compared. The detailed system operation parameters are given in Table 12, and the effects of excess air coefficient Ra, O2 mole fraction fO2, Ca/S molar ratio Rcs, MEA/CO2 mass ratio Rmc, H2O/Mn2O3 mass fraction Rhm, and the MEA mass fraction fmea in the MEA subunit on the system efficiency η, carbon capture ratio Rc, sulfur capture ratio Rs, the cost of

Conclusions

A novel biomass oxy-fired power plant with CCS (CLOF-CCS) is proposed and compared with the conventional biomass air-fired power plant with carbon capture and sequestration (BAFP-CCS) in this work by means of systematic modeling. All the key subunit models for the two power plants are validated in terms of thermodynamics and economics. The effects of excess air coefficient Ra, O2 mole fraction fO2, Ca/S molar ratio Rcs, MEA/CO2 mass ratio Rmc, H2O/Mn2O3 mass fraction Rhm and the MEA mass

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, 51706012) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (M17RC00030) for this work.

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