Economic assessment of a methane production approach integrated with the carbon capture of a coal power plant

In order to solve the problem of high carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants and to clean up coal power, carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology needs to be applied on coal-fired power plants. To study its feasibility and economics, this paper proposes three different CCUS time transformation scenarios for 2023, 2025 and 2030 based on the operational data of a typical 660MW thermal power unit, and It is found that Option 1 requires an investment of 2.904 billion Yuan, which translates into an increase in generation cost of about 0.12088 yuan/kWh, Option 2 requires an investment of 2.323 billion Yuan, which translates into an increase in generation cost of about 0.100583 yuan/kWh, and Option 3 requires an investment of 1.724 billion Yuan, which translates into an increase in generation cost of about 0.07159 yuan/kWh. In response to the problem of high cost of the CCUS renovation scheme, a technical route combining CCUS and methane dry reforming is proposed to use the captured CO
2
for synthesis gas, and it is found that the expenditure and revenue of 1t CO
2
due to the consumption of natural gas to make synthesis gas are 1520.7 yuan and 3247.2 yuan respectively, and the comprehensive carbon capture system analysis shows that Option 3 can achieve zero cost decarbonization.