Novel system integrations of 1000 MW coal-fired power plant retrofitted with solar energy and CO2 capture system

The energy penalty of MEA based post-combustion CO2 capture technology will reduce the efficiency of coal-fired power generation significantly. The introduction of solar energy to the capture system can compensate the CO2 capture penalty. This paper proposed three integrations of 1000 MW coal-fired power plant retrofitted with solar energy and post-combustion CO2 capture system (PP + Solar + PCC), which the solar energy is used to replace the 1st extraction to heat the feedwater or provide the MEA regeneration heat demand is the main difference in three PP + Solar + PCC both in thermal and economic. The 1000 MW coal-fired power plant, solar aided coal-fired power system and coal-fired power plant with post-combustion CO2 capture system (PP + PCC) are selected as the reference cases. By comparison of six systems, it was concluded that the integration of using solar energy to replace the first high pressure extraction and taking a part of intermediate pressure cylinder exhaust to provide the reboiler heat demand is the best in three strategies of PP + Solar + PCC. In addition, this paper analyzed the evaluation indicators variation with the changes of CO2 removal rate, solar collector field area, DNI, solar collector field cost, coal cost and carbon tax. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.