Techno-economic analysis of excess heat driven post-combustion CCS at an oil refinery

• We calculate the cost for CCS at a refinery.
• We vary the size of the plant and the CO2 concentration.
• We do a CCS heat integration case study on a refinery.
• The price one sets on excess heat is of high importance.

Carbon capture and storage may, as a bridging technology, rapidly decrease CO2 emissions in the industrial sector. In this paper, a techno-economic study of a future MEA carbon capture plant implemented at a case study oil refinery is presented. Costs are calculated for six setups of carbon capture at the refinery. Excess heat from the refinery processes is used in the capture plant for regeneration of the absorption fluid, and the stripper reboiler temperature is varied to increase the extractable of excess heat. Supplementary heating is carried out with a heat pump. The number of chimneys to be included in the capture process is also varied, resulting in different CO2 concentrations and amounts of CO2 at the inlet of the capture plant. Results show that the specific cost for carbon capture increases as the amount of captured carbon increases due to the need for heat pumps. The costs are in the range of 41–57€/t for the low-temperature cases (TReb = 90 °C) and 39–44€/t for the high-temperature cases (TReb = 120 °C).