International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 51 (2016) 4855

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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijggc

A thermo-economic analysis of repowering of a 250 MW coal red

power plant through integration of Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell with
carbon capture
Samiran Samanta a , Sudip Ghosh b,
a
b

Automobile Engineering Department, MCKV Institute of Engineering, 243 G. T. Road (N), Liluah, Howrah 711204, West Bengal, India
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, Howrah 711103, West Bengal, India

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 7 December 2015
Received in revised form 15 April 2016
Accepted 20 April 2016
Available online 28 May 2016
Keywords:
Power plant
Efciency
Emission
Carbon capture
Repowering
MCFC
Thermo-economic

a b s t r a c t
This paper presents a thermo-economic assessment of a repowering conguration of a 250 MW old existing coal red power plant through integration of Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells (MCFC) at the downstream
of the existing boiler. Hydrogen-rich syngas generated from natural gas in an external reformer used as
fuel in MCFC unit. In the downstream of MCFC the residual combustible species from anode side is burnt
with 98% pure oxygen, followed by heat recovery, cooling and moisture separation, CO2 compression
and storage. The proposed repowering scheme helps to increase the plant capacity by about 27%, while
capturing 67% of emitted CO2 . Contrary to the conventional CO2 capture process, this MCFC repowering
does not eat up the plants efciency, rather, it increases the net efciency by 1.1%-points. The effect
of repowering on cost of electricity, CO2 avoided cost (CCA), specic primary energy consumption for
CO2 avoided (SPECCA) are estimated. The study shows that this repowering scheme yields a lesser unit
cost of electricity (COE) compared to the commercially available monoethanolamine (MEA) based carbon
capture retrot.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Energy demand is one of the serious needs for both developed
and developing countries, though reasons behind it are different.
Electricity supply shares an important part in the worlds total
energy demand mix. Presently more than 40% of the global electricity and heat supply, particularly in countries such as South Africa
(93%), Poland (92%), China (79%), India (69%) and the United States
(49%), is produced by the coal red power plants (CFPP) (Hanak
et al., 2014). It has been noticed that a signicant share of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission comes from large stationary
conventional CFPPs. World energy related carbon dioxide emission
is projected to rise 46% during 20102040 (International Energy
Outlook, 2013). Hence, technologies that offer energetic performance improvement as well as considerable emission reduction
are of interest today. This issue of more electricity generation with

Corresponding author at: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, P.O. Botanic Garden, Howrah
711103, West Bengal, India.
E-mail addresses: sudipghosh.becollege@gmail.com,
ghoshsudip.2000@gmail.com (S. Ghosh).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2016.04.021
1750-5836/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

reduced CO2 emission can be addressed either by establishment

of new power plants with modern technology or by refurbishment of existing power plants. It may not always be possible to
satisfy this bipolar need only by building new power plants due
to socio-economic issues. This prevailing scenario has encouraged
researchers to look for innovative repowering schemes for old, yet
running, CFPPs to enhance their capacities and reduce emissions.
CO2 can be captured in two ways: pre-combustion capture and
post-combustion capture. The post-combustion approach is advantageous because it can easily be retrotted with the existing system
and it does not require substantial modication to the existing
plant. Monoethanolamine (MEA) based carbon capture technology
is mostly studied as an option for post-combustion carbon capture methods (Abu-Zahra et al., 2007). Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell
(MCFC) requires CO2 as an input for its operation. This characteristic
of MCFC gives the opportunity to integrate MCFC in the downstream of a CO2 emitting system. MCFC can simultaneously act
as a CO2 concentrators and a power producer (Campanari et al.,
2010; Amorelli et al., 2004; Wee, 2014). Rexed et al. (2015) made
an experimental investigation on a lab scale MCFC, fed with simulated ue gas, to show the feasibility of MCFC as a CO2 separator
for gas turbine and coal red power plants. Milewski et al. (2009)
showed that the use of an MCFC can reduce CO2 emissions from a

S. Samanta, S. Ghosh / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 51 (2016) 4855

Nomenclature
A
a
CC
CCU
CF
CRF
CUF
d
FGDU
H
HR
L
m
n
P

Area (m2 )
Auxiliary loss due to transmission (%)
Specic capital cost ($/kW)
CO2 compression unit
Fuel cost ($/GJ)
Capital recovery factor
Capital utilization factor
Discount rate (%)
Flue gas desulphurization unit
Yearly operating hour (h)
Heat rate (kJ/kWh)
Plant life (years)
Mass ow rate (kg/s)
Number of units
Pressure (bar)

coal red power plant by 61%. Manzolini et al. (2012) showed that
integration of MCFCs in natural gas red combined cycles (NGCC)
increases plant output by 40% and reduces CO2 emission 7080%.
Mamaghani et al. (2015a) made energetic, exergetic, economic and
environmental analysis of a molten carbonate fuel cell-gas turbine
(MCFC-GT) hybrid plant and optimized the system. Campanari et al.
(2014) made an economic analysis of CO2 capture from NGCC using
MCFC and its effect on cost of electricity and CO2 capture cost.
This paper reports the results of a simulation study applied to
repowering of an existing coal red power plant through integration of a MCFC system with carbon capture. The possible energetic
performance improvement due to repowering has been predicted
through thermodynamic analysis by using Cycle Tempo simulation
software (Cycle Tempo Release 5.0, 2005). An economic analysis
of this repowering scheme has also been done to estimate the
unit cost of electricity (COE), cost of CO2 avoidance (CCA) and specic primary energy consumption for CO2 avoided (SPECCA). The
thermo-economic performance of the repowered plant is compared with the plant with MEA based CO2 capture system for
capturing the same amount of CO2 captured in MCFC integrated
repowered plant.
2. Description of existing plant and repowering scheme
An old running 250 MW Indian coal red thermal power plant
is considered for this study. The detailed description of the plant
is given in a previous paper of the authors (Samanta and Ghosh,
2015). Schematic diagram of the plant is shown in Fig. 1 which
shows major components of the plant i.e., high-pressure turbine
(HPT), intermediate pressure turbine (IPT), low pressure turbine
(LPT), generator (GEN), condenser (CON), high pressure heaters
(HPH 1 & 2), low-pressure feed water heaters (LPH1, 2 & 3), deaerator (DEA), condensate extraction pump (CEP), boiler feed pumps
(BFP), cooling water circulation pump (CWCP), furnace (CC), evaporator (EVP), superheater (SPH), reheater (RH) & economizer (ECO),
circulating water pump (CWP), air pre-heater (APH), forced draft
(FD) fan, induced draft (ID) fan and stack.
For repowering, a high temperature molten carbonate fuel cell
(MCFC) unit is placed at downstream of the existing boiler. The
schematic diagram of the MCFC integration circuit is shown in Fig. 2.
The molten carbonate fuel cell stack and all its pre-stack and poststack processing units are together being termed as MCFC unit in
this text. The cathode side is fed with the existing boiler exhaust
after desulphurization, dilution with fresh air and preheating, as
shown in Fig. 2. The anode side is fed with a hydrogen-rich syngas generated from natural gas in an external reformer. Todays

49

MCFC stacks can internally reform the natural gas feed. However,
in this paper, the authors considered an external reformer, which
utilizes the heat of anode exhaust and thus spares the stack of supplying heat for reforming reaction. The residual fuel from the anode
exhaust is burnt with 98% pure oxygen supplied from an air separation unit followed by a heat recovery steam generation (HRSG)
unit, fuel preheating, heat supply to the external reformer, moisture separation and nally CO2 compression and storage at 110 bar.
The existing steam cycle conguration remains unchanged. The
existing plant has its own ESP (not shown in Fig. 1), which separates ashes and particulates. Moreover, the boiler exhaust is diluted
with fresh air which effectively eliminates the possibility of harmful
effects of traces gases. However, considering the higher sensitivity
of MCFC towards the presence of Sulfur, a desulphurizer has been
considered for the boiler exhaust entering the cathode of the MCFC.
Several manufacturers now commercially offer multi-MW MCFC
modules (Wee, 2014). South Korea alone has a cumulative capacity of 53 MW, which includes two plants of capacity 11.3 MW and
14.9 MW. Given this scale of present plants, integration of 100 MW
MCFC plant can be considered feasible, particularly when MCFC
is integrated at the downstream of a coal red plant. However, it
may be noted that, the current module size would require many
multi-MW modules to be connected in parallel and the exhaust of
the existing plant needs to be distributed to such smaller modules.
In literature, studies could be found where even bigger plant sizes
have been considered by several researchers (Wee, 2014).

3. Calculation methodology
Both the existing steam power plant (EP) and the repowered
plant (RP) are simulated in Cycle Tempo ow simulation software.
The operating parameters of the steam cycle are taken from a
running plant. The performance of the plant before and after repowering is analyzed from thermodynamic, emission and economic
perspectives.

3.1. Assumptions
The following assumptions are made for thermodynamic and
economic modeling of existing and repowered plants:

1. The lower heating value (LHV) of coal is 17,000 kJ/kg.

2. The isentropic efciency values for the turbines, pumps, fans
are considered as 88%, 86% and 86%, respectively whereas the
generator efciency has been considered as 95%.
3. The following composition (by mass) of coal is considered:
34.46% C, 2.43% H2 , 0.69% N2 , 6.97% O2 , 0.45% S, 12% H2 O and
43% ash (Suresh et al., 2012).
4. The molar composition of the natural gas is taken as follows: 89%
CH4 , 7% C2 H6 , 1% C3 H8 , 0.1% C4 H10 , 2% CO2 , 0.89% N2 and LHV is
46.502 MJ/kg (Campanari et al., 2010).
5. The fuel utilization factor is taken as 75%, Current density of
MCFC is 1000 A/m2 . Cell voltage at nominal condition 0.7 V, MCFC
cell working temperature is 650 C (Campanari et al., 2010).
6. Steam is added to achieve steam to carbon ratio is 3.5 in the
reforming charge (Campanari et al., 2010).
7. This MCFC unit is isothermal, all the calculated chemical balances
and the current density are based on the average cell temperature.
8. The MCFC stack consists of a number of identical cells connected
in series.
9. For economic study, the cost of CO2 transportation and storage
cost is not considered.

50

S. Samanta, S. Ghosh / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 51 (2016) 4855

AIR

FD FAN

STACK

ID FAN

HPT

APH

IPT

LPT

GEN

ECO

RH
CON
H

SH
HPH1

LPH1

LPH2

EVP

CWCP

HPH2

LPH3

CEP

DEA
CWP

CC
BFP
COAL
ASH

Fig. 1. Schematic of the existing plant in Cycle Tempo software interface.

CO2 compress ion

Moisture

unit

Separator

Fresh air

Stack
Oxygen from

Compress or

ASU

To storage

FGDU

Fan

HX

Compress or

Flue gas from

existing boil er

Reformer
H
H

HX

C MCFC

Compress or
Combustion
chamber

HX
H

HRSG Unit

Natural gas

Fig. 2. Schematic of the MCFC integration circuit in Cycle Tempo software interface.

3.2. Thermodynamic heat balance

The numerical simulation of existing and repowered plants is
done in Cycle Tempo ow simulation software to assess the thermodynamic performance theoretically. All the apparatus of the

system and plant components are provided by the software. In standard practice Cycle Tempo considers a steady ow through all the
components. So, a control volume method is applied for each of
the components to generate the mass, energy balance equations
for each component as well as the total plant.

S. Samanta, S. Ghosh / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 51 (2016) 4855

The net power output (W) of the existing plant is given as follows:

(Wnet )EP = Wgross

EP

Wauxillary

(1)

EP

(Wnet )EP
100%
mcoal LHV Coal

(2)

Cycle tempo uses a lumped-volume model for the MCFC, based

on the applicable cell thermodynamics as described below. Such
model is quite useful in carrying out cycle analysis and predicting
cycle performances, while cell internal variations of temperature,
Nernst potential or species concentration is not of much significance. This model has earlier been used by other researchers
(Campanari et al., 2010; Woudstra et al., 2006; Desideri et al.,
2011) for modeling different types of power cycle using Cycle
Tempo. To minimize the effect of voltage decay it has been proposed (Campanari et al., 2010) that fuel utilization of the cell should
be limited to 75%, which is also considered in this paper.
The Nernst voltage E is estimated (Manzolini et al., 2012) as
follows:

RTFC
ln
En =
2F

1/2
2 ,ca

pO

pH2 ,an pCO2 ,ca

G
2F

(4)

The Gibbs energy of formation at standard pressure (G) is

expressed (Campanari et al., 2010) as follows:
G = 242000 + 45.8 TFC

(5)

The operating cell voltage (V) is calculated as follows:

V = E 0 En V

(6)

where V is the voltage loss.

By analogy with Ohms law, the voltage loss is given as follows:
V = i (rohm + ran + rca )

(7)

where i is the current density, rohm is Ohomic loss, ran is anodic over
potential, rca is cathodic over potential and, respectively.
The Ohomic loss is calculated from the following expression
(Campanari et al., 2010):

3016

 1

TFC

1
923

(8)

The anodic and cathodic over potential can be determined using

the following empirical relations, which are valid for cell operating
temperature range of 600700 C (Campanari et al., 2010):
ran = 2.27 109 exp
10

rca = 7.505 10

 53500 

exp

RTFC

p0.47
p0.17
p1.0
H
CO
H O

 77229 
RTFC

MCFC unit

(12)

The net rate of power output from the repowered power plant
(Wnet )RP is given as follows:
(Wnet )RP = (Wnet )st + (Wnet )MCFCunit

(13)

The total rate of heat input for the repowered plant is given by
the following equation.
(Qin )RP = mcoal LHV coal + mNG LHV NG

(14)

where mNG and LHVNG are the mass ow rates and lower heating
value of natural gas, respectively.
The net efciency of the repowered plant is given as follows:
(Wnet )RP
100%
(Qin )RP

RP =

(15)

p0.43
O2

p0.09
CO2

CO2 emission of the existing plant and repowered plant are calculated on the basis of the ue gas data obtained as Cycle Tempo
simulation output.
The rate of CO2 emission from the existing plant can be
expressed as follows:

mCO2

(10)

(11)

ST

mFlue gas

CO2 MCO2

MFlue gas

(16)

where m is the mass ow rate, is the molar percentage and M is

the molecular weight of the corresponding gas.
The specic CO2 emission rate of existing steam plant (SCO2 )ST
is given as follows:

SCO2


ST

mCO2

ST

(17)

(Wnet )ST

The rate of CO2 emission from the repowered plant is estimated

by applying the Eq. (16) separately for cathode exhaust and anode
burnout gas stream.
The total rate of CO2 emission through the cathode exhaust
stream from MCFC unit is expressed as follows:

mCO2


cathode exhaust

mcathode exhaust
CO2 MCO2
Mcathode exhaust

(18)

The total rate of CO2 emission through the burnout gas stream
of anode exhaust from MCFC unit is expressed as follows:

mCO2


anode burnout gas

manode burnout gas

Manode burnout gas

CO2 MCO2

(19)

The total rate of CO2 emission (mCO2 )RP from repowered plant
is given by the following equation.

mCO2

(9)

where p is the corresponding average partial pressure of the

species.
The electrical output power (WMCFC ) of the fuel cell stack is given
as:
WMCFC = V i A DCAC

3.3. CO2 emission

pH2 O,an pCO2 ,an

rohm = 0.5 104 exp

(3)

where R is universal gas constant, TFC is the stack temperature of

the fuel cell, F is Faraday constant, p is the species average partial
pressure in the fuel cell.
The maximum theoretically achievable reversible potential (E 0 ),
which only depends on the temperature, and is calculated from the
change in the Gibbs energy of formation at standard pressure (G)
as:
E0 =

where A is the total area of the MCFC unit and DCAC is the DC to AC
conversion efciency.
The net rate of power output from the fuel cell unit is given as:
(Wnet )MCFC unit = WMCFC Wauxiliary

The net efciency () of the steam plant is given as follows:

EP =

51

RP

= mCO2

cathodeexhaust

+ mCO2

anode burnout gas

(20)

The specic CO2 emission rate (SCO2 )RP from repowered plant is
given by the following equation.

SCO2


RP

m

CO2

Wnet

(21)
RP

Here in this repowering scheme, CO2 emission is considered to

be happening only from the cathode exhaust stream because CO2
present in the anode burnout gas is considered to be captured and
stored.

52

S. Samanta, S. Ghosh / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 51 (2016) 4855

Table 1
Assumptions for economic analysis.
Name of the parameters
Plant life
Yearly operating hours
Discount rate
CRF
Capital cost
Fuel cost
CUF

Years
Hours
%

$/kW
$/GJ
%

Existing plant

MCFC Unit

30
8000
12
0.124
1000
3.2
85

15
8000
12
0.147
calculated
4.8
85

(Soltani et al., 2013; Naja et al., 2014; Mamaghani et al., 2015b)

correlating the capital cost of a component to the corresponding
design parameters.
Capital cost of the air and gas compressors are given as follows:
39.5 mair
ZC =

0.9 AC

PDelivery

ln

PSuction

PDelivery

(29)

PSuction

Capital cost of fuel compressor is given as follows:

ZFC = 91562

 W 0.67

(30)

445

3.4. Plant economics

Capital cost of heat exchangers are estimated as follows:

The effect of repowering on the unit cost of electricity (COE)
is analyzed. Basic assumptions for the economic analysis are taken
from literature (Samanta and Ghosh, 2015) and are given in Table 1.
COE is calculated taking into account the capital cost, operation and
maintenance cost and fuel cost. A bottom up approach is followed
for estimating the capital cost of the repowered plant, i.e., capital
costs of the individual subcomponents are calculated separately
and summed up with capital cost of the original plant. For the existing coal red power plant the capital cost includes installation cost,
indirect costs and contingencies. The operation and maintenance
cost is estimated as a percentage (4%) of total capital cost.
The unit cost of electricity (COE) is given by:
COE =

ZCAP + ZO&M + ZFUEL

E

(22)

where, E is the annualized delivered electricity, which is estimated

as:
E = W H CUF (1 a)

(23)

The capital cost for the existing plant is estimated based on its
Total Overnight Cost (TOC), which includes engineering, site preparation or construction cost as well as the contingency.
Thus, total annualized capital cost is estimated by the following
equation.
ZCAP = TOC CRF

TOC = CC W

d (1 + d)

(25)
L

(1 + d) 1

(26)

where, CC is the capital cost per kW and L is the plant life in years.
Total annualized fuel cost is estimated by the following equation.
ZFuel = CF HR E

(27)

The COE of the existing plant is estimated as follows:

COE ST

(ZCAP )ST + (ZO&M )ST + (ZFuel )ST

=
EST

ZMCFC = 2600 WMCFC

The operation and maintenance cost is considered as 4% of the

TOC.
The repowering calls for integration of several new components,
whose capital and operating costs will largely inuence the unit
cost of the repowered plant. The capital cost for the repowered
plant is calculated by adding the capital costs of the additional components to the capital cost of the original plant. It is assumed that
the capital costs for the additional components include their related
engineering and installation costs. Individual costs for these components are estimated through functions available in the literature

(32)

The capital cost of the inverter for the MCFC can be estimated
as (Naja et al., 2014):
ZInverter = 105

W

MCFC, DC

0.7
(33)

500

Capital cost of the steam reformer unit is estimated by capital cost scaling methodology proposed by earlier researcher
(Manzolini et al., 2013) and is given by the following equation.
ZReformer = n Reference plant cost

0.75

(Qin )reformer

(34)

n (Qin )reformer,ReferencePlant

where n is the number of units.

Capital cost of combustion Chamber of anode spent fuel is given
as follows:
ZCC =

(28)

(31)

where, AHX is the area of the heat exchanger which is calculated

from the UA value obtained from the simulated results of Cycle
Tempo software interface considering the heat exchangers are of
counter ow type. The value overall heat transfer coefcient (U) is
taken as 0.029 kW/m2 K, assuming the heat exchangers are made
of stainless steel.
The cost of the MCFC stack is expected to have the greatest inuence upon the delivered cost of electricity of the repowered plant,
this being the new and developing technology item. A review of literature indicates that in the recent past, some researchers have
considered specic cost of the MCFC in the rage of 30003200
US$/kW (Mamaghani et al., 2015a,b; Campanari et al., 2014; Naja
et al., 2014). A more recent report of the US Department of Energy
(DOE) considered a specic cost of 2000 $/kW for low production
volume and predicted a further cost reduction as the production
volume increases (Ahmed et al., 2015).
In the present analysis, it is thus considered reasonable to
assume a specic cost of 2600 US$/kW for the MCFC stack.

(24)

where, TOC is the total overnight capital cost and CRF is the capital
recovery factor (CRF), the two being estimated by the following
relations.

CRF =

ZHX = 2290 (AHX )0.6

46.08 moxidant
0.995

Pout
Pin

[1 + exp (0.018 Tout 26.4)]

(35)

Capital cost of HRSG unit is given as follows:


ZHRSG = 6570

0.8

Qec
TLMTD,ec

+21276 mw + 1184.4 mg

1.2

Qev

0.8 

TLMTD,ev
(36)

Capital cost of ASU unit is estimated by capital cost scaling methodology proposed by earlier researcher (Park et al., 2015) and is given
by the following equation.

S. Samanta, S. Ghosh / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 51 (2016) 4855

Table 2
Major operating and performance parameters of the existing steam power plant.
Parameters

Description

HP steam parameters

Pressure
Temperature
Steam ow rates
HP turbine
IP turbine
LP turbine
Coal ow rate per mill
Rate of Energy Input
No. of mill operating
Total rate of input energy
Air requirement
Primary
Secondary
Gross Power
Steam Generator
Auxiliary Power Consumption BFP
CEP
CWP
CWCP
FD Fan
ID Fan
Net power
Efciency
Net
Specic CO2 emission


ZASU = 0.8 Reference plant cost

Units

Parameters

Units

Quantity

152
540
221.45
201.63
176.72
8.24
5
700740
40.56
230
260920.69
5079.81
194.64
418.71
3524.01
837.11
856.42
250009.98
35.67
1.02

Bar

C
kg/s
kg/s
kg/s
kg/s

MCFC fuel utilization factor

CO2 utilization factor
MCFC surface area
Steam cycle Gross power output
MCFC Gross power output
Steam cycle Auxiliaries power
MCFC unit Auxiliaries power
ASU power consumption
CO2 compression unit power consumption
Net power out put
Fuel input in steam cycle
Fuel input to MCFC
plant Efciency
Specic CO2 emission

%
%
m2
MW
MW
MW
MW
MW
MW
MW
MW
MW
%
t/MWh

75
52.06
119,084.39
260.92
100.3
10.92
8.3
3.83
19.7
318.5
700.74
165.55
36.76
0.34

kW
kg/s
kg/s
kW
kW
kW
kW
kW
kW
kW
kW
%
t/MWh

CompressorPower
n Compressorpowerofreferenceplant

0.67
(38)

Total annualized capital cost of the integrated MCFC unit is given

as follows:
ZCAP,MCFCUnit =



ZComponents

MCFC Unit

CRF MCFC Unit

(39)

Total annualized cost of fuel for MCFC unit is estimated as follows:

(ZFuel )MCFC Unit = CF mNG LHV NG H 3600

(40)

The unit cost of electricity of the repowered plant (COERP ) is thus

given by:
+Z

(Z

+Z

)+(Z

)+(Z

+(Z

O&M, ST
O&M, MCFC Unit
Fuel RP
Fuel
COERP = CAP, ST CAP, MCFC Unit
ERP
Here again, the operation and maintenance cost is considered
as 4% of the capital cost.
Cost of CO2 avoided (CCA) is estimated as follows:

CCA =

(COE)Repowered Plant (COE)Referenc Plant

SCO2

Referenc Plant

SCO2

(42)

Repowered Plant

The specic primary energy consumption for CO2 avoided

(SPECCA) is estimated as follows:
3600

SPECCA =

SCO2

1
Repowered Plant

Referenc Plant

SCO2

1
Reference Plant

through a molten electrolyte as carbonate ion. For this carbonate

ion formation, the ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide in the cathode
stream should be at least 2.75 (mass based) or 2.0 (mole based) or
even more (Milewski et al., 2009). The minimum required ratio of

0.7

Capital cost of CO2 compression and condenser unit is estimated

by capital cost scaling methodology proposed by earlier researcher
(Manzolini et al., 2013) and is given by the following equation.

Table 3
The major performance parameters of the repowered plant.

Quantity

O2 production rate of the plant

O2 production rate of the reference plant

ZCO2 = n Reference plant cost

53

(43)

Repowered Plant

4. Results and discussions

The major thermodynamic operating and performance parameters of the existing plant are given in Table 2.
MCFC unit works as carbon dioxide separator/concentrator
because CO2 is transported from the cathode side to the anode side


+ 0.2 Reference plant cost

Main compressor power of the plant

Main compressor power of the reference plant

0.54

(37)
oxygen to carbon dioxide is low in the boiler exhaust gas, going
to cathode side of MCFC. So, additional air is added to the ue gas
prior to entry to cathode. The temperature of boiler exhaust is also
low for feeding to the MCFC directly. So, before entry to cathode,
a heat exchanger is added to heat up the ue gas by utilizing the
waste heat of the cathode exhaust stream. In the downstream of
MCFC the spent fuel from anode exhaust is burned in a combustion
chamber fed with 98% pure oxygen followed by steam generation
in HRSG unit, fuel preheating, heat supply to the external reformer,
moisture separation and nally CO2 compression and storage. The
detailed modeling of ASU unit is not done here. An ASU unit is
considered which can supply the required ow rate O2 stream for
the combustion of spent fuel coming out from anode side of MCFC
unit. For thermodynamic energy balance calculation, the specic
energy consumption of the ASU unit is considered to be 0.295 kWh
per kg of pure O2 supplied, taken from available data in literature
(Campanari et al., 2010). After the moisture separation the CO2
stream is compressed in a ve stage compression unit to 110 bar
(Campanari et al., 2010). The major operating and performance
parameters of the repowered plant are given in Table 3.
)MCFC Unit
(41)

Table 3 shows that the proposed repowering scheme improves

the capacity by about 27.4% and the efciency by 1.1%-points. CO2
emission reduces by about 67%.
To compare the emission performance of this repowering
scheme with the conventional carbon capture scheme using MEA
technology, an alternative scheme is considered where a commercial scale MEA based CO2 capture unit capturing 90% CO2 (Singh
et al., 2003; Chapel et al., 1999) is integrated at the boiler exhaust.
The amount of ue gas from the boiler of the existing plant is sent
to the MEA based CO2 capture unit in such a way so that after capturing 90% CO2 from that stream the overall captured CO2 from the
plant would become 67% of the total emitted CO2 . The rest of the
ue is considered to bypass the capture system. Thermodynamic
analysis of the existing power plant with MEA based CO2 capture
unit is made as followed by earlier researchers (Hanak et al., 2014;
Singh et al., 2003; Chapel et al., 1999). The power requirement for
running the turbo machines of the MEA unit are estimated as pro-

54

S. Samanta, S. Ghosh / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 51 (2016) 4855

Table 4
Summary of operation conditions for MEA based CO2 capture plant.
Name of the Parameters

Condition

Reboiler temperature
Stem in/out condition from reboiler
Condenser temperature in
regeneration column
Discharge pressure of 1st stage of
CCU/pressure ratio of each stage
Absorber pressure
Regeneration column pressure
Type of MEA solution
Loss of solvent during process
Temperature of the ue gas going to
absorber

123 C
212 C/133 C
40 C
2.7 bar/1.58
1.2 bar
2 bar
30 wt% aqueous solution
1.6 kg/t of CO2 removed
40 C

posed by Chapel et al. (1999). The thermal energy requirement

for the re-boiler in the regeneration column is estimated taking
the value of reboiler heat duty 4.136 MJ/kg of CO2 (Desideri and
Antonelli, 2014). To meet that heat load the steam is extracted
from the IP turbine exhaust (Desideri and Antonelli, 2014). The CO2
rich stream is assumed to be compressed to 110 bar by a 9 stage
compression (Hanak et al., 2014). The power consumption for the
compression of CO2 rich stream is estimated from Cycle Tempo
software simulation of a multistage compressor unit. The design
and operating parameters of the capture plant are taken from the
available data from literatures (Hanak et al., 2014; Singh et al., 2003;
Chapel et al., 1999; Desideri and Antonelli, 2014; Mores et al., 2012;
Ho et al., 2011). The summary of the key operating parameters of
the MEA plant is given in Table 4.
The economic analysis of the plant with MEA based carbon capture is also done by using scaling methodology and taking available
data from literature (Singh et al., 2003; Chapel et al., 1999; Desideri
and Antonelli, 2014; Mores et al., 2012; Ho et al., 2011). The annual
cost involvement for the MEA based CO2 captured system is estimated and nally the COE of the coal red power plant with MEA
based CO2 capture system is estimated. By using the Eqs. (42) and
(43) the CCA and SPCCA of the plant with MEA based CO2 capture is estimated and given in Table 5. The major thermodynamic
and economic performance comparison among the existing plant,
repowered plant with MCFC and plant with MEA based carbon capture in terms of capacity, efciency, specic CO2 emission, COE,
CCA, SPCCA is given in Table 5. Table 5 clearly indicates that, the
repowering scheme helps to increase the capacity and overall efciency by 27.4% and 1.1%-points, respectively and decrease the
specic CO2 emission by about 67%. The COE of the existing plant
is 57.41 $/MWh which is at par with the COE of old existing Indian
plant as estimated by earlier researchers (Rao and Kumar, 2014).
After this repowering the COE has gone up to 81.74 $/MWh, an
increase of about 42%. Table 5 also shows that the same amount of

carbon capture from the existing plant to be made by MEA based

capture process, which would reduce net plant output and efciency by 21.75% and 6.4%-points, respectively. The COE of the plant
with MEA capture has become 89.89 $/MWh, which is even higher
than of proposed repowered plant. The cost of CO2 avoided (CCA) of
the repowered plant is lower than that of plant with MEA capture
(43.96 $/ton of CO2 compared to 49.82 $/ton of CO2 ). The specic
primary energy consumption for CO2 avoided (SPECCA) index is
also an indicator of any CO2 capture method because it indicates the
amount of energy penalty for CO2 capture method. Table 5 shows
that the SPECCA of plant with MEA capture system is 3.35 MJ/kg
of CO2 . On the other hand the SPECCA of proposed MCFC repowering scheme is 0.6 MJ/kg of CO2 which is encouraging in the
view of energy penalty due to CO2 capture. The proposed MCFC
repowering scheme with CO2 capture has clear advantages over
the MEA based CO2 capture method. Power output and efciency
have not been sacriced due to CO2 capture and the repowered
plant offers comparatively lower COE. On an optimistic note, the
scenario can be even better if the specic cost of MCFC decreases
substantially, with further technology development and increased
production volume. The COE and CCA of this proposed repowering
scheme would become more attractive and economical than other
technology.
5. Conclusion
This work presents a thermo-economic investigation of a proposed repowering for an old 250 MW coal based power plant
through integration of MCFC unit with carbon capture. The proposed repowering scheme helps to increase net output and
efciency of the plant by about 27% and 1.1%-points, respectively
in spite of 67% CO2 capture from the plant. The COE of the repowered plant becomes 82 $/MWh which is 46% higher that of existing
plant. If same amount of carbon is captured from the existing plant
by commercially available MEA capture process that would incur a
loss in capacity and efciency by about 22% and 18%, respectively.
Not only that the COE of the plant with MEA based capture process
becomes 90 $/MWh which is even higher than that of the proposed
repowering scheme. This repowering scheme is in energy penalty
for CO2 capture perspective because the SPECCA of repowered plant
is much lower (even negative) than the plant with MEA capture
process. The COE would become competitive in near future once a
lower MCFC specic cost is achieved through scientic research of
MCFC technology. In view of increasing demand of electricity coupled with reduction in CO2 emission from CFPPs, government and
policy makers would have to make policy to support and encourage
this type of repowering scheme to be more economic and competitive. This study clearly shows that this repowering scheme can
reduce the CO2 emission from an old coal red plant in a better

Table 5
Performance comparison between the existing and repowered plant.
Name of Parameters

Units

Existing plant

Repowered Plant with MCFC

Plant with MEA based carbon capture

Gross boiler generation rate

Steam turbine gross output
Auxiliary consumption
Net output of Steam cycle
Additional power out put
Main Fuel input
Additional fuel
Net plant out put
Net Efciency of the plant
Net Heat rate
Specic CO2 emission
COE of the plant
CCA
SPECCA

Kg/s
MW
MW
MW
MW
MW
MW
MW
%
kJ/kWh
t/MWh
$/MWh
$/ton of CO2
MJ/kg of CO2

221.45
261
11
250
NA
700.74
NA
250
35.67
10092.5
1.02
57.41
NA
NA

221.45
261
42.8
250
100.3
700.74
165.55
318.5
36.76
9793.2
0.34
81.74
43.96
0.6

221.45
233.4
28
205.4
NA
700.74
NA
205.46
29.32
12278.3
0.35
89.89
49.82
3.35

S. Samanta, S. Ghosh / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 51 (2016) 4855

economic and thermodynamic way than the existing MEA based

CO2 Capture technology.
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