Techno-economic prospects for CO2 capture from distributed energy systems (original) (raw)

2013, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

Potentially low-cost CO 2 capture may facilitate pre-commercial solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology entering the energy market. The aim of this study was to compare and evaluate the techno-economic performance of CO 2 capture from industrial SOFC-Combined Heat and Power plant (CHP). CO 2 is captured by using oxyfuel afterburner and conventional air separation technologies. The results were compared to both SOFC-CHP plants without CO 2 capture and conventional gas engines CHP without CO 2 capture. The system modeling was performed using Cycle Tempo software. Our results show that while SOFC-CHP without CO 2 capture requires a low SOFC stack production cost of about 310 /kWtocompetewithconventionalGE−CHP,SOFC−CHPwithCO2captureusinglargescaleairseparationunitcancompetewithGE−CHPathigherstackproductioncostswhentheCO2priceisabove37/kW to compete with conventional GE-CHP, SOFC-CHP with CO 2 capture using large scale air separation unit can compete with GE-CHP at higher stack production costs when the CO 2 price is above 37 /kWtocompetewithconventionalGE−CHP,SOFC−CHPwithCO2captureusinglargescaleairseparationunitcancompetewithGE−CHPathigherstackproductioncostswhentheCO2priceisabove37/t CO 2. CO 2 avoidance cost of 50 /tCO2canbeachievedatastackproductioncostof410/t CO 2 can be achieved at a stack production cost of 410 /tCO2canbeachievedatastackproductioncostof410/kWe. The results indicate that CO 2 capture, even with commercially available technologies, can economically facilitate SOFC entering the energy market in a carbon-constrained society.