CO2 post-combustion capture in coal-fired power plants integrated with solar systems

The majority of the World's primary energy consumption is still based on fossil fuels, representing the largest source of global CO2 emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such emissions must be significantly reduced in order to avoid the dramatic consequences of global warming. A potential way to achieve this ambitious goal is represented by the implementation of CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) technologies. However, the significant amount of energy required by the CCS systems still represents one the major barriers for their deployment. Focusing on post-combustion capture based on amine absorption, several interesting options have been investigated to compensate the energy losses due to solvent regeneration, also using renewable energy sources. One of the most promising is based on the use of concentrating solar power (CSP), providing a part of the energy requirement of the capture island. In this study the integration of a CSP system into a coal-fired power plant with CO2 post-combustion capture is investigated. Basically, a CSP system is used to support the heat requirement for amine regeneration, by producing saturated steam at low temperature. This allows to reduce or even eliminate the conventional steam extraction from the main power plant, affecting positively net power production and efficiency. The energy analysis of the whole system is carried out using the GateCycle software to simulate the coal-fired power plant and ChemCad platform for the CO2 capture process based on amine absorption.