Performance and economic analysis of commercial-scale coal-fired power plant with post-combustion CO2 capture

A performance and economic analysis of a commercial-scale coal-fired power plant with a post-combustion CO2 capture process in South Korea was performed. Based on the KoSol Process for CO2 Capture (KPCC) developed by the Korea Electric Power Company Research Institute, a power plant cost model coupled with a performance model was developed to evaluate the levelized cost of electricity and the cost of CO2 avoided for power plants with CCS. A techno-economic evaluation result, based on the general guideline suggested by the IEA task force group and key performance data of the pilot-scale CO2 capture test results showed that at the base case, the LCOE of a commercial-scale USC power plant with CCS in South Korea will increase from 47 USD/tCO2 (without CCS) to 68 USD/tCO2 (with CCS), and the cost of CO2 avoided was calculated as 33 USD/tCO2. Comparing this with various studies in other literature showed that the cost of CO2 avoided for power plants in South Korea was much lower than that of the OECD average, which was mainly due to the relatively low capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX) of a power plant with/without CCS.