CO2 capture study in advanced integrated gasification combined cycle

This paper presents the results of technical and economic studies in order to evaluate, in the French context, the future production cost of electricity from IGCC coal power plants with CO2 capture and the resulting cost per tonne of CO2 avoided. The economic evaluation shows that the total cost of base load electricity produced in France by coal IGCC power plants with CO2 capture could be increased by 39% for ‘classical’ IGCC and 28% for ‘advanced’ IGCC. The cost per tonne of avoided CO2 is lower by 18% in ‘advanced’ IGCC relatively to ‘classical’ IGCC. The approach aimed to be as realistic as possible for the evaluation of the energy penalty due to the integration of CO2 capture in IGCC power plants. Concerning the CO2 capture, six physical and chemical absorption processes were modeled with the Aspen Plus™ software. After a selection based on energy performance three processes were selected and studied in detail: two physical processes based on methanol and Selexol™ solvents, and a chemical process using activated MDEA. For ‘advanced’ IGCC operating at high-pressure, only one physical process is assessed: methanol.