Microalgae cofiring in coal power plants: Innovative system layout and energy analysis (original) (raw)
This paper investigates the smart integration of a 500 ha microalgae culturing facility with a large scale coal power plant (758.6 MW e): a fraction of the CO 2 contained in the coal plant flue gases is used for the algal cultivation, a fraction of the low-temperature flue gas heat available is used for the biomass drying, finally the produced biomass is co-fired in the coal plant. The produced algal biomass represents approximately 1% of the boiler heat input. Through the solution of energy and mass balances of each plant component, the overall system performances in terms of net energy ratio (NER) and CO 2 emissions reduction are obtained. The computed NER (1.92) guarantees an energy harvest almost twice the energetic cost needed to produce the microalgal fuel. The total CO 2 emissions are reduced of approximately 0.48%, identifying microalgae cofiring as a solution able to reduce the environmental impact of electricity generation. A simplified economic analysis has allowed an estimate of the algal system investment cost (about 235 kV ha À1) and of the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) (554.4 V MWh À1). A set of sensitivity analyses is finally performed to investigate the influence of the initial hypotheses on the results.
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