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I.b Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) costs

Costs Summary

The cost of building and running gas and coal and/or biomass power stations with carbon cature.

Technology costs

Please see: XVIII Carbon Storage Costs for costs relating to carbon capture storage, costs here relate to carbon capture and this seperate sheet deals with the cost of storage.

Studies to add:

  • IEA (2001) Cost and Performance of Carbon Dioxide Capture from Power Generation [1]

Costs breakdown by type

  • Investment Cost - Cost of building carbon capture thermal plants
  • Operating Cost - Fixed and variable operating costs of the plant excluding fuel and carbon transportation and storage costs
  • Fuel Cost - Not included in this sector, please see: Indigenous fossil-fuel production costs and Balancing imports costs

Costs Methodology

Methodology used

The user defines the number of CCS power plants and the fuel mix (between gaseous and solid hydrocarbons). Once the trajectory of CCS gas and CCS solid fuel is set by the user, the number of plants to be built are defined. Investment costs are a function of new build and operating cost are a function of the number of plants operating within that time period.

Please see 2050 Methodology for a full description of the costs approach in the Calculator.

Methodology issues and uncertainty

  • The residual cost of decommissioning plants is not considered here unless it is implicit within the investment cost estimates.
  • The cost range for solid fuel CCS power includes co-firing in the upper bound. The range is intended to cover the uncertainty in the input fuel. The input fuel for solid fuel plants, either coal and/or biomass, is uncertain because the 2050 Calculator does not make any assumptions on the end use of biomass.
  • The largest uncertainties for cost within CCS power relates to the cost of storing carbon and the residual cost this may incur, please see: XVIII Carbon Storage Costs

Technical Assumptions

Gaseous Hydrocarbon CCS plants

  • Lifetime = Assume 35 years[2]. Therefore no retirement before 2050, built from 2020
  • Efficiency = 56-65% thermal efficiency, 10-13% own use as a percentage of supplied electricity,
  • Load factor = 85%
  • Input Fuel = Natural Gas or Biogas

Solid Hydrocarbon CCS Plants

  • Lifetime = Assume 35 years[3]. Therefore no retirement before 2050, built from 2020
  • Efficiency = 44-50% thermal efficiency, 13-27% own use as a percentage of supplied electricity
  • Load factor = 85%
  • Input Fuel = Coal or Solid Biomass

Questions to Stakeholders

  • Do the Gas and solid fuel CCS power cost ranges shown above capture the possibility of using biomass as the feedstock within the range?
  • Since costs are highly uncertain at a commercial scale, we have bundled pre and post combustion coal CCS costs into the same range. Is this a fair assumption for now or should a distinction be made?

General Comments

Please use this space to make any general comments. Please add your name when commenting.

 
  1. http://www.iea.org/papers/2011/costperf_ccs_powergen.pdf
  2. MARKAL
  3. MARKAL