Feasibility of integrating solar energy into a power plant with amine-based chemical absorption for CO2 capture

Solar thermal energy has the potential to supply the thermal demand of stripper reboiler in the power plant with amine-based post combustion CO2 capture. The performance of a power plant integrated with solar assisted post combustion CO2 capture (SCC) is largely affected by the local climatic conditions, such as solar irradiation, sunshine hours and ambient temperature, the type of solar thermal collector and CO2 recovery ratio. The feasibility evaluation results about such a power plant show that the cost of electricity (COE) and cost of CO2 avoidance (COA) are mainly determined by the local climatic conditions. For the locations having higher solar irradiation, longer sunshine hours and higher ambient temperature, the power plant with SCC has lower COE and COA. COE and COA are sensitive to the prices of solar thermal collectors. In order to achieve lower COE and COA compared to the power plant integrated with non-solar assisted post combustion capture, the price of solar thermal collector has to be lower than 150 USD/m2 and 90 USD/m2 for the solar trough and vacuum tube, respectively.

► Solar thermal energy can supply the thermal demand of the stripper reboiler in CO2 chemical absorption.
► The integration of solar thermal energy can reduce the electrical efficiency penalty to 4–6% of fuel LHV.
► The integration of solar thermal energy may not reduce COE and COA at the current solar thermal collector prices.