LAUSR

Installing CO2 capture plants in coal-fired power stations will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help mitigate climate change. However, the deployment of this technology faces many obstacles—in particular, high energy consumption. Aiming to address this challenge, we investigated the integration of a solar energy system in a 1000 MW coal-fired power plant equipped with monoethanolamine (MEA)-based CO2 capture (termed PG-CC) by comparing the thermo-economic performance of two integrated systems with that of PG-CC. In the first system, solar-aided coal-fired power generation equipped with MEA-based CO2 capture (SA-PG-CC), solar thermal was used to heat the high-pressure feed water in the power plant, while the reboiler duty of the capture plant’s stripper was provided by extracted low-pressure steam from the power plant. The second system integrated the power plant with solar-aided MEA-based CO2 capture (SA-CC-PG), using solar thermal to heat the stripper’s reboiler. Both systems were simulated in EBSILON Professional and Aspen Plus and analysed using thermo-economics theory. We then evaluated each system’s thermodynamic and economic performance in terms of power generation and CO2 capture. Compared with PG-CC, the thermo-economic cost of electricity increased by 12.71% in SA-PG-CC and decreased by 9.77% in SA-CC-PG. The unit thermo-economic cost of CO2 was similar in both the PG-CC and SA-PG-CC systems, but significantly greater in SA-CC-PG. Overall, SA-PG-CC produced less power but used energy more effectively than SA-CC-PG. From a thermo-economic point of view, SA-PG-CC is therefore a better choice than SA-CC-PG.