Economical assessment of natural gas fired combined cycle power plant with CO2 capture and sequestration

Norway is privileged from nature with extensive resources of natural gas, oil and hydropower. Location of gas fired combined cycle (CC) power plants in Norway offers advantages due to the availability of natural gas from the Norwegian continental shelf and fairly low ambient temperatures, giving high fuel-to-electricity conversion efficiency. The continental shelf provides large storage capacity for CO2 in deep saline aquifers and in drained gas fields. There may also be a need for CO2 for increased oil recovery (IOR) in tail-end production from major oil reservoirs in the region. During the last decade work has been done in order to evaluate different options for CO2 capture from gas turbine power cycles. In this paper the results of extensive work on CO2 capture carried out during the last years by Statoil in co-operation with several engineering contractors, are presented. The goal has been to develop a commercially viable concept for a combined cycle power plant including CO2 capture and sequestration. The main concept presented in this paper is based on CO2 capture from exhaust gas from a combined cycle power plant, using absorption by amine solutions. The CO2 is compressed, transported by pipeline and stored in a deep saline aquifer offshore. The paper presents plant configurations, overall heat and mass balances and performance summary for the CO2 capture plant. The results of extensive cost estimates are presented. The results are compared to an alternative process for capturing CO2 based on a hydrogen-fired combined cycle. The Cost Of CO2 capture from a combined cycle power plant is compared to other greenhouse gas reducing measures.