ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF CARBON CAPTURE OPTIONS FOR POWER GENERATION BASED ON GASIFICATION

The present paper evaluates, from an economical point of view, pre- and post-combustion capture from gasification power plants. The cases of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plant which uses coal mixed with sawdust and generates about 400 MW net electricity with and without CO2 capture is presented in detail. The comparison is done considering the most important economic indicators e.g. cost of electricity, CO2 avoided and removed costs etc. Concerning the total investment cost, the calculation results show that the cost of IGCC with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is higher (pre- combustion capture using Selexol (R) about 23% higher and post-combustion capture using MEA about 36% higher) than the plant without capture. Also, comparing the two main investigated cases for CO2 capture process, the results show that the electricity production cost for post-combustion capture technology is about 21% higher than the cost for pre- combustion capture technology; CO2 captured cost for post-combustion capture technology is about 90% higher than for pre-combustion capture technology and CO2 avoided cost in the post-combustion capture technology case is increased by a factor of 2.15 than in the pre-combustion capture technology case.