Influence of four-end HTM (high temperature membrane) parameters on the thermodynamic and economic characteristics of a supercritical power plant

An oxy-type power plant was analyzed in this paper, equipped with a hard-coal-fired pulverized fuel boiler, a steam turbine, a CO2 capture unit and an ASU (air separation unit) with a four-end-type high-temperature membrane. The gross electrical power of the plant is 600 MW; the live and reheated steam parameters are 650 °C/30 MPa and 670 °C/6 MPa, respectively. In this paper, computations were performed for three air compressor pressure ratios (β = 15; 20; 30) and a range of oxygen recovery rate (50% ≤ R ≤ ∼99%). The net efficiency of the oxy-type plant reached 38.7% compared to 46.5% for the reference plant. The equation to calculate a membrane area was derived in this paper. The defining dependence relationship between the R and β was also derived. The total investment costs for the ASU and the entire plant was determined as a function of R and β. Similarly, the break-even price of electricity and its individual components were determined. The break-even price for R ≈ 98% and β = 15 is 1.73 EUR/MWh higher than for the reference plant (63.14 EUR/MWh). In the conducted risk analysis, a Monte Carlo method was used. With a probability of 50%, the break-even price for the oxy-type and reference plants are ≤67.05 EUR/MWh and ≤69.98 EUR/MWh, respectively.