Energy and economic analysis of the CO2 capture from flue gas of combined cycle power plants

Carbon capture and storage is considered as one of the key strategies for reducing the emissions of carbon dioxide from power generation facilities. Although post-combustion capture via chemical absorption is now a mature technology, the separation of CO2 from flue gases shows many issues, including the solvent degradation and the high regeneration energy requirement, that in turn reduces the power plant performances. Focusing on a triple pressure and reheat combined cycle with exhaust gas recirculation, this paper aims to evaluate the potential impacts of integrating a post-combustion capture system, based on an absorption process with monoethanolamine solvent. Energy and economic performances of the integrated system are evaluated varying the exhaust gas recirculation fraction and the CO2 capture ratio. The different configurations examined are then compared in terms of efficiency and rated capacity of the integrated system, as well as considering the cost of electricity generated and the cost of CO2 avoided. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.