Comparative potential of natural gas, coal and biomass fired power plant with post - combustion CO₂ capture and compression

The application of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon neutral techniques should be adopted to reduce the CO₂ emissions from power generation systems. These environmental concerns have renewed interest towards the use of biomass as an alternative to fossil fuels. This study investigates the comparative potential of different power generation systems, including NGCC with and without exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), pulverised supercritical coal and biomass fired power plants for constant heat input and constant fuel flowrate cases. The modelling of all the power plant cases is realized in Aspen Plus at the gross power output of 800 MW_e and integrated with a MEA-based CO₂ capture plant and a CO₂ compression unit. Full-scale detailed modelling of integrated power plant with a CO₂ capture and compression system for biomass fuel for two different cases is reported and compared with the conventional ones. The process performance, in terms of efficiency, emissions and potential losses for all the cases, is analysed. In conclusion, NGCC and NGCC with EGR integrated with CO₂ capture and compression results in higher net efficiency and least efficiency penalty reduction. Further, coal and biomass fired power plants integrated with CO₂ capture and compression results in higher specific CO₂ capture and the least specific losses per unit of the CO₂ captured. Furthermore, biomass with CO₂ capture and compression results in negative emissions.