International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 78 (2018) 73–84

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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control

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

Techno-economic comparative analysis of Biomass Integrated Gasification T

Combined Cycles with and without CO2 capture
⁎
Guiyan Zanga, , Junxi Jiab, Sharma Tejasvia, Albert Ratnera, Electo Silva Lorac
a
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
b
College of Power and Energy Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Itajuba, Pinheirinho, Itajubá CEP 37500-903, MG, Brazil

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Biomass Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (BIGCC) power system is a potential application of biomass
BIGCC gasification technology to control CO2 emissions from power generation processes. Nevertheless, there is no
Economic analysis study of BIGCC systems that provides detailed techno-economic comparative among its different technological
Sensitivity analysis alternatives. This study provides the techno-economic comparative analysis of eight BIGCC system designs that
CO2 emission price
include the technology options of the biomass gasification, the power generation, and the CO2 emission control.
Biomass price
Results show that the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) of these systems is ranged from 13.1 ¢/kWh to 25.9¢/
kWh. For current designs, the Selexol CO2 removal technology is more economical than the MEA CO2 capture
process. Furthermore, when the biomass price is lower than 10 $/ton, the air gasification BIGCC systems can
compete with the current electricity generation technology, whereas when the CO2 emission price is higher than
90 $/ton, the additional CO2 Capture and Storage technology has the potential to reduce the LCOE of BIGCC
systems. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis estimates the impacts of other key economic parameters on the LCOE
and Monte Carlo method is used to show the uncertainty of simulation.

1. Introduction
Due to the fast-growing emerging economies, the total world energy
consumption is expected to increase by 28% from 2015 to 2040 (EIA,
2017). Among all energy markets, the electrical power sector, which
contributes to 41% of greenhouse gas emissions through fossil fuel
combustion, will have the fastest growth rate (Agbor et al., 2016). In
the electric power industry, there are two pathways to control CO2
emissions: using renewable energy resources to replace fossil fuels and
employing new technologies to improve the power generation effi-
ciency (de Gouw et al., 2014). Biomass Integrated Gasification Com-
bined Cycle (BIGCC) is a biomass-based power system with power ef-
ficiency as high as 40%. Therefore, BIGCC system is expected to be an
effective option for CO2 emissions reduction (Rodrigues et al., 2007).
Biomass gasification is one of the most important technologies to
convert biomass feedstock into power, heat, liquid fuels and gaseous
fuels (Molino et al., 2018). Biomass gasification in co-firing cycle with
natural gas reduces the plant emissions of the Natural Gas Combined
Cycle (NGCC) and raises the lower heating value (LHV) efficiency by up
to 2.5% (Khorshidi et al., 2016). Besides, biomass gasification based
small-scale combined heat and power systems have an efficiency as
high as 80%, which have a great market potential (Dong et al., 2009).
Moreover, the biomass gasification syngas product can be converted
into liquid fuels by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, methanol synthesis,
mixed alcohols synthesis, and syngas fermentation (Bai et al., 2015;
Cruz et al., 2017; Dutta et al., 2014; Munasinghe and Khanal, 2010).
The current study fucoses on the biomass gasification technology ap-
plication in the power sector, which can also provide a reference for its
further application in other areas.
The BIGCC power system is an integration of the biomass gasifica-
tion with the combined cycle of gas and steam turbines, which has a
similar system design as the Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC) and
the Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power systems. The
BIGCC power plant can be developed from NGCC or IGCC by co-firing
bio-gas and natural gas in the NGCC power system (Khorshidi et al.,
2016) or co-gasifying biomass and coal in the current IGCC project
(Meerman et al., 2013a). Besides, some researchers also tried to build a
new BIGCC project based on the NGCC or the IGCC concept (Mondal
and Ghosh, 2017). Even though a new BIGCC project construction has a
higher capital cost than modifying the current NGCC or IGCC systems,
its feedstock choice and plant capacity are more flexible. Thus, the
techno-economic analysis of BIGCC power systems in this paper focuses

⁎
Corresponding author at: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, The University of Iowa, 3131 Seamans Center, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
E-mail address: guiyan-zang@uiowa.edu (G. Zang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2018.07.023
Received 9 April 2018; Received in revised form 16 July 2018; Accepted 24 July 2018
1750-5836/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
G. Zang et al. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 78 (2018) 73–84

Nomenclature MEA Mono-Ethanol Amine

NETL National Energy Technology Laboratory
ASU Air Separation Unit NGCC Natural Gas Combined Cycle
BIGCC Biomass Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle O&M Operations and Maintenance
CCF Capital charge factor PC Pulverized coal power plant
CCS CO2 Capture and Storage TOC Total Overnight Cost
CF Capacity factor TPC Total Plant Cost
CO Operating costs WGS Water gas shift reaction
COA Cost of CO2 Avoided
COE Cost of Electricity BIGCC power system configuration
EFGT Externally Fired Gas Turbine
HHV Higher Heating Value AIV Air gasification, internally fired, without CCS
HRSG Heat recovery steam generators OIV Oxygen gasification, internally fired, without CCS
IGCC Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle AEV Air gasification, externally fired, without CCS
IOU Investor-Owned Utility OEV Oxygen gasification, externally fired, without CCS
IRR Internal Rate of Return AIC Air gasification, internally fired, with CCS
LCOE Levelized Cost of Electricity OIC Oxygen gasification, internally fired, with CCS
LF Levelization factors AEC Air gasification, externally fired, with CCS
LHV Lower heating value OEC Oxygen gasification, externally fired, with CCS

on the setup of a new BIGCC project. to show the uncertainty of the simulation. All these results can supply
The research about BIGCC system design began several decades ago references for the design of the BIGCC project.
and underwent rapid development in the beginning of the 21st century
(Limmeechokchai and Suksuntornsiri, 2007). However, the first at- 2. Material and methods
tempts of building demonstration projects of BIGCC systems were not
very successful due to the technology challenges (Asadullah, 2014a) 2.1. BIGCC system technology options
and the misunderstanding about its economic benefits (Pang and Li,
2006). The technology challenges include the supply chain manage- As indicated in Fig. 1, BIGCC power system connected with post-
ment of feedstock, pretreatment of biomass, gasification technology, combustion CCS can be subdivided into biomass gasification, power
and syngas cleaning for downstream application. Currently, more de- generation, and CCS subsystems based on the major technologies
tailed supply chain management models (Mirkouei et al., 2017) and (Meerman et al., 2013b). The first subsystem of BIGCC is the biomass
more comprehensive studies on biomass drying (Verma et al., 2017), gasification process. Biomass gasification has the potential to offer a
grinding (Tamura et al., 2014), gasification (Sansaniwal et al., 2017), high biomass conversion efficiency, which makes it attractive as a
syngas impurity components, and cleaning technologies (Asadullah, thermo-chemical conversion technology of biomass (Sansaniwal et al.,
2014b; Rios et al., 2018) have been conducted, which enhance the 2017). Biomass gasification is used to convert solid biomass fuel into a
feasibility of BIGCC systems. Moreover, the project cost can be reduced syngas energy carrier using gasifiers, which can be categorized into
by using low-cost gasification technologies (Sansaniwal et al., 2017) three types: fixed bed, fluidized bed, and entrained flow gasifiers.
and biomass feedstock (Hu et al., 2017). In consideration of the lim- Among these three types, the fixed bed gasifier has the simplest
itation of fossil fuels and the increasing concern over greenhouse gas
emissions, BIGCC has received increasing attention as a potential highly
efficient and economically feasible power system (Hagos et al., 2017).
This paper is part of a series of comparative studies on BIGCC power
systems design. The overall objective of this study is to provide a de-
tailed techno-economic comparison among different technological op-
tions for BIGCC power systems. Eight BIGCC power systems have been
compared by considering three alternatives, including the change of the
gasification agent from air to the mixture of oxygen and steam (Naqvi
et al., 2016), the variation of the gas turbine combustion method from
the internally fired to the externally fired (Datta et al., 2010), and the
application or not of CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) technology to
control CO2 emissions (Minguez et al., 2013). The technical analysis of
BIGCC systems of this paper is similar with our previous work (Zang
et al., 2018), and the economic estimation is based on the methodology
developed by National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) (Fisher,
2015). The novelty of this paper is that for the first time, different
technology options of BIGCC systems designs have been compared
based on the same techno-economic analysis assumptions. This paper
compares the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) of eight BIGCC power
systems and the Cost of CO2 Avoided (COA) of four groups of BIGCC
technology options. Moreover, this paper provides details about the
feasibility of BIGCC systems with low biomass price and high CO2
emission price. Finally, the sensitivity analysis evaluates the impacts of
the availability factor, the capital cost, and the Operations and Main-
tenance (O&M) cost on the LCOE, and the Monte Carlo method is used Fig. 1. Flowchart of BIGCC system with post-combustion CCS.

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G. Zang et al.
structure and the longest residence time. However, limited by the dif-
ficulty in biomass mixing, the fixed bed only has the dried biomass
input up to 4 ton/hr, leading to low scale-up potential. In contrast, the
fluidized bed gasifier provides excellent gas-solid contact and mixing
and has high fuel flexibility, which is more suitable for the larger scale
application (the dried biomass input of fluidized bed gasifier can be up
to 41 ton/hr) than fixed bed gasifier. However, due to the relatively low
reaction temperature of the fluidized bed of 750 °C–900 °C, its tar
content in the syngas product is higher than that of the other types of
gasifier. The entrained flow gasifier has the largest biomass input of
more than 400 ton/hr, and can be operated at a high pressure up to
100 bar and high temperatures over 1200 °C. In the entrained flow
gasifier, the gasification reactions take place rapidly and the tar pro-
duction is low. Even though both the large capacity and the clean
product of the entrained flow gasifier make it is an attractive candidate
for the future large-scale application, the severe conditions for the
construction materials, the requirement to pre-treatment of feedstock to
100 μm, and the difficulty of ash removal make it too expensive to be
used in the small-scale BIGCC systems design. Considering that the
current study focuses on small-scale BIGCC systems, the fluidized bed
gasifier is more suitable than the other two types (E4tech, 2009; Hrbek,
2016).
A few years ago, most of the industrial application of fluidized bed
biomass gasifiers used steam or air as the gasification agent (Alauddin
et al., 2010). However, the carbon conversion efficiency of steam ga-
sification is only around 65% (Murakami et al., 2007), and the LHV of
the syngas product from air gasification has a low value between 4 MJ/
Nm3 to 6 MJ/Nm3. The need for increasing conversion efficiency and
syngas LHV has promoted the development of using the mixture of
oxygen and steam as the gasification agent in the fluidized bed gasifier.
Recently, researchers have shown that the oxygen/steam gasification of
biomass has a higher carbon conversion efficiency and the syngas
product has a higher LHV of 10.9–11.7 MJ/Nm3 (Barisano et al., 2016;
Broer et al., 2015). To use the oxygen/steam gasification technology in
BIGCC systems, an Air Separation Unit (ASU) should be added before
the gasifier to separate air into high purity oxygen and by-product ni-
trogen. The ASU has an oxygen specific power consumption of
0.25–0.28 kW/Nm3, which result in the needed oxygen price is 0.4–0.6
$/ton (Alsultannty and Al-Shammari, 2014). Nevertheless, the cur-
rently limited comparative economic analysis of the air and oxygen/
steam gasification BIGCC power systems makes it is hard to determine
whether using oxygen/steam as the gasification agent is a feasible im-
provement in BIGCC system design.
The second subsystem of BIGCC is the power generation combined
cycle, which consumes the gasified syngas to generate power. The
combined cycle of the gas turbine and the steam turbine is a combi-
nation of a gas combustion topping cycle with a water/steam bottoming
cycle as shown in Fig. 1 (Kehlhofer et al., 2009). Internally or directly
fired gas turbine has been widely used in the BIGCC power system
design as the topping cycle gas combustion technology. However, the
direct combustion method is sensitive to the impurities in the syngas,
causing the needs to use complex cleaning system before the combus-
tion chamber that subsequently increases the cost of total BIGCC power
system design. To reduce the cost of syngas cleaning systems, more
studies have focused on the application of Externally Fired Gas Turbine
Fig. 2. The configurations for the eight BIGCC power systems schemes.
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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 78 (2018) 73–84
(EFGT) in BIGCC power system (Datta et al., 2010; Mondal and Ghosh,
2017). The capacity of EFGT power plant is ranged from 50 kW to
50 MW, whereas for the biomass application, the capacity of EFGT is up
to 10 MW (Al-Attab and Zainal, 2015). Studies have shown that the
BIGCC-EFGT plant has a lower cost than the internally fired combined
cycle (Soltani et al., 2013). However, none of the studies has analyzed
the economic indicators of BIGCC-EFGT using the mixture of oxygen
and steam as gasification agent combined with CCS technology. It is
hard to determine whether using the externally fired syngas combustion
method is a real improvement of BIGCC power plants.
The last subsystem of BIGCC power plant is the CCS unit that is used
to control the CO2 emission. Biomass is assumed to be a CO2 neutral
fuel resource because the CO2 emission from the biomass combustion
process can be consumed during the growth of biomass (Ali et al.,
2017). Moreover, BIGCC can obtain net negative CO2 emissions when
integrated with CCS technology, which makes the BIGCC-CCS power
system be attractive for the CO2 emissions control. There are three
different configurations of technologies for CCS: post-combustion, pre-
combustion, and oxyfuel combustion. For the BIGCC systems design,
the post-combustion and the pre-combustion are two primary CO2
capture technologies. It has been shown that for the coal-based IGCC-
CCS power system, the pre-combustion CO2 capture method has su-
perior performance than the post-combustion capture technology
(Cormos, 2014). However, the lack of comparative studies on BIGCC-
CCS power systems with different CO2 capture methods makes it dif-
ficult to demonstrate the benefit of using the pre-combustion CO2
capture method when compared with the post-combustion CO2 capture
technology.
2.2. System configurations
Fig. 2 shows the configurations for the eight BIGCC power systems
schemes compared in this paper. These choices involve the variation of
gasification agent from air to the mixture of oxygen and steam, the
change of the gas turbine combustion method from internally fired to
externally fired, and the application or not of CCS technology to control
CO2 emissions. In Fig. 2, one BIGCC power plant can be represented by
three letters with the first letter represents the gasification agent, the
second one means the combustion method, and the last one indicates
the application or not of CCS technology. For example, AIV is a BIGCC
power system design with air gasification, internally fired combustion,
and without a CCS technology to control CO2 emission. Similarly, the
other seven systems designed in this paper are named OIV, AEV, OEV,
AIC, OIC, AEC, and OEC.
Fig. 3(a)–(c) show the schematic diagrams of the three BIGCC power
systems without CCS technology. Fig. 3(a) is the flowchart of AIV,
which uses air as the gasification agent, employs the internally fired
combustion method, and lacks of the CCS technology. In AIV, biomass
reacts with air in a fluidized bed gasifier to produce raw syngas. Then,
the raw syngas is cleaned in the cleaning system and combusts with air
in the gas turbine to generate power by the combined cycle of gas and
steam turbines. Fig. 3(b) shows the flowchart of OIV. Different from
AIV, OIV uses the mixture of oxygen and steam to replace air as the
gasification agent. Thus, in Fig. 3(b), an Air Separation Unit (ASU) is
integrated to separate air into high-purity oxygen and nitrogen
G. Zang et al.
Fig. 3. Schematic diagrams of BIGCC power systems of (a) AIV, (b) OIV, (c) AEV, (d) AIC, and (e) OIC.
byproduct. The high-purity oxygen mixes with steam to react with the
biomass in the gasifier, and part of the nitrogen byproduct flows
through the gas compressor to reduce its power consumption. The
schematic of AEV is shown in Fig. 3(c), which replaces the internally
fired gas turbine used in AIV with an EFGT. AEV has a simpler cleaning
system than AIV but adds a heat exchanger unit between the combus-
tion chamber and the turbine. In the combustion chamber, cleaned
syngas combusts with air under atmospheric pressure and provides hot
flue gas. The hot flue gas flows through the heat exchanger unit and
counter-currently warms up the high-pressure air from the compressor,
and then the hot high-pressure air generates power in the turbine. Be-
cause OEV has a similar layout to that of OIV and AEV, its schematic is
not shown here.
Fig. 3(d) and (e) show the schematic diagrams of AIC and OIC,
which use different CO2 capture methods. In Fig. 3(d), the AIC system
uses air as the gasification agent, making the syngas product have a
nitrogen concentration of 48%. As the nitrogen dilutes the gasification
syngas product, making the CO2 concentration of the syngas too low to
be separated before combustion, AIC uses a post-combustion CO2 cap-
ture method to control CO2 emissions. Mono-Ethanol Amine (MEA) is
chosen as the solvent for the post-combustion absorption, so the post-
combustion CO2 capture technology used in this paper is also named as
MEA method. Compared with AIV, the only change of AIC is the ad-
dition of an MEA unit after HRSG. In the MEA unit, CO2 in the HRSG
flue gas is absorbed in the absorber at a lower temperature and released
in the stripper at a higher temperature. In Fig. 3(e), OIC employs the
mixture of oxygen and steam as the gasification agent, which reacts
with biomass and produces the syngas with relatively high CO2 con-
centration, so the OIC system uses pre-combustion CO2 capture method
to control CO2 emission. The pre-combustion CO2 capture method is
also called the Selexol method because Selexol is chosen as the solvent
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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 78 (2018) 73–84
for the pre-combustion absorption (Jiang and Bhattacharyya, 2016).
Compared with OIV, OIC adds a Water Gas Shift (WGS) reaction unit
and a Selexol unit between the syngas compressor and the internally
fired gas turbine. In the WGS reactors, the syngas reacts with the steam
drawn from the steam turbine to produce higher CO2 concentration
syngas. Then the higher CO2 concentration syngas flows through the
Selexol unit, in which CO2 is absorbed in the elevated pressure absorber
and released in lower pressure flash tanks. After CO2 separation, the
residual syngas is burned in the gas turbine to generate power in the
combined cycle. Because AEC and OEC have similar CO2 capture pro-
cesses as AIC and OIC, their schematics are not listed.
2.3. Technical overview
The performance of the BIGCC power systems is evaluated using the
Aspen Plus software. The mass and energy balance of these systems are
provided in our previous work (Zang et al., 2018), and the energy ef-
ficiency of these systems is calculatedbased on Higher Heating Values
(HHV), shown in Eq. (1)
ηHHV = (Wg + Ws−WASU −Wccs )/ HHVb × 100% (1)
where ηHHV is the Higher Heating Value efficiency, Wg is the work
output of the gas turbine (the gas turbine work output has considered
the consumption of all the compressors), Ws is the work output of the
steam turbine (the steam turbine work output has included the con-
sumption of all the pumps), WASU is the work input of the ASU, Wccs is
the work input of CCS process, and HHVb is the HHV of the biomass
feedstock. Detailed technical assumptions used in the modeling process
are as follows.
G. Zang et al.
2.3.1. Biomass gasification
The biomass gasification subsystem includes a fluidized bed biomass
gasifier. Moreover, an additional Air Separation Unit is added for sys-
tems using oxygen/steam gasification. The fluidized bed gasifier with a
capacity of 25 MW is chosen in this study, and its capacity is calculated
from the biomass input based on the HHV. In all the BIGCC systems,
sawdust, with the proximate and ultimate analysis shown in Table 1, is
used as the biomass feedstock and its flow rate is 5.4 ton/hr. By this
assumption, the power output of the BIGCC systems without CCS is
around 10 MW, which matches the scale of the externally fired com-
bustion method. It needs to be mentioned that the current designs have
a much smaller scale than IGCC or NGCC that have a capacity more
than 400 MW. Scale effect on the performance of BIGCC systems and
economic indicators could be examined in our future work.
Sawdust has been chosen as the feedstock in the BIGCC system
design for three reasons. First, wood sawdust is a waste product of wood
sawing process, which has the potential to be one of the most important
renewable energy sources without affecting our food supply chain.
Second, the particle size of sawdust is below 6 mm, which has the po-
tential to be directly used in the fluidized bed gasifier without further
grinding. Third, sawdust has been successfully used as feedstock in
pilot-scale fluidized bed gasifier, which reduces the technology risk of
the BIGCC system design. Moreover, using sawdust can provide useful
technical details for the further feedstock candidates, such as terrestrial
biomass, marine biomass, and waste, which are three major biomass
sources. Terrestrial biomass includes forest biomass, grasses, energy
crops, and cultivated crops; marine biomass incorporates algae and
water plant; while the waste can be separated into municipal waste,
agricultural solid waste, forestry residues, and industrial waste. The
sawdust used as feedstock in this paper is one of the forestry residues
biomass resources, which is ideal for gasification that has a lower pre-
treatment requirement compared with the other biomass materials.
Forest biomass and some cultivated crops have similar physical para-
meters to sawdust, after upgrading the biomass grinding process, the
gasification technologies discussed in this paper are also suitable for
them. For the marine biomass resources, additional drying subsystem is
needed to reduce their high moisture content, which can make them be
a feedstock option for the BIGCC system design.
A semi-empirical model of the fluidized-bed gasifier is built using
Aspen plus to simulate the gasification process (Hannula and Kurkela,
2010) with the following assumptions: the equivalence ratio is 0.27, the
gasification temperature is 810 °C, the gasification pressure is 1 atm,
and the carbon conversion ratio of the feedstock is 90.5%. The air ga-
sification process has no additional steam input, whereas the mass-
based steam to oxygen ratio for the oxygen/steam gasification is 2.04
kg-steam/kg-oxygen. The molar concentration of the oxygen produced
in the Air Separation Unit is 95%, and the energy requirement for the
Air Separation Unit is computed based on the oxygen needed in the
gasification process (Fout et al., 2015). More detailed information of
the semi-empirical models is shown in the section of “Semi-empirical
model of fluidized bed gasifier.”
2.3.2. Combined cycle power generation
The combined cycle power generation subsystem includes a gas
turbine topping-cycle and a steam turbine bottoming-cycle. Based on
the combustion technology, the topping-cycle has two options: the in-
ternally fired cycle that includes a waste heat boiler, a complex cleaning
system, air and syngas compressors, and an internally fired gas turbine;
the externally fired cycle has a waste heat boiler, a simple cleaning
system, air compressors, and an Externally Fired Gas Turbine.
For the internally fired topping-cycle, the waste heat boiler is used
to cool down the gasification syngas product to 200 °C. In the complex
cleaning system, the solids in the syngas product are separated by using
a slag handling process, the COS of the syngas is converted into CO2 and
H2S in a COS hydrolysis reactor, 95% of Hg is removed by a carbon bed,
and the remaining chlorides, SO2, H2S, and NH3 are removed by using a
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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 78 (2018) 73–84
syngas scrubber. Then the cleaned syngas passes through the com-
pressors and combusts with air in the internally fired gas turbine. The
internally fired gas turbine is an SGT-600 design, which has an inlet
temperature of 1237 °C and a pressure ratio of 14. The isentropic effi-
ciency of the compressors is 86% and that of the gas turbine is 88%.
For the externally fired topping-cycle, a waste heat boiler is applied
to cool the gasification syngas product down to 200 °C. In the simple
cleaning system, the particles are removed by using multi-compartment
separators, the remaining chlorides, SO2, H2S, and NH3 are removed by
using a syngas scrubber and the emission of NOx, Hg and COS are
controlled during the combustion process. The cleaned syngas reacts
with air in the combustion chamber and heats the compressed air in the
heat exchanger. Then the hot high-pressure air generates power in the
gas turbine. The gas turbine has an inlet temperature of 927 °C and a
pressure ratio of 8, the isentropic efficiency of the air compressor is
86%, and the cold end temperature difference of the heat exchanger is
300 °C.
The design of the steam turbine bottoming-cycle stays the same in
different systems, and it includes an HRSG, a steam turbine, a con-
denser and a pump. HRSG is used to recover the heat energy of the gas
turbine flue gas, which generates steam for the steam turbine and the
waste heat boiler. The pinch point temperature difference of the HRSG
is assumed to be 30 °C and the temperature of the HRSG flue gas is
90 °C. The steam turbine is an SST-150 design, which has an inlet
temperature of 505 °C, an inlet pressure of 103 bar, a condensation
pressure of 0.08 bar, and an isentropic efficiency of 88%. The condenser
is used to convert the turbine exhaust steam into pure water, and the
pump has an isentropic efficiency of 78%.
2.3.3. CO2 Capture and Storage
Fig. 4 shows the Aspen Plus models of two CO2 capture technologies
examined in the current research: the MEA post-combustion CO2 ab-
sorption technology and the Selexol pre-combustion CO2 separation
technology. The MEA post-combustion CO2 absorption technology,
shown in Fig. 4(a), is used in the air gasification BIGCC systems (AIC
and AEC), which has a lean solvent inlet temperature of 40 °C, an ab-
sorber pressure of 1.01 bar, and a stripper steam input temperature of
174 °C. Fig. 4(b) illustrates the model of Selexol, which is integrated
with a water gas shift reaction unit. The water gas shift reaction unit
has two reactors, where the inlet molar ratio of H2O to CO is 1.75, and
the outlet temperatures of the higher temperature reactor and the lower
temperature reactor are 460 °C and 250 °C, respectively. The Selexol
CO2 capture process is simulated using the glycol solution, which ab-
sorbs CO2 in the absorber at 18.8 bar and releases CO2 from the flash
tanks at 9.72 bar, 3.44 bar, and 0.28 bar. After being captured, the se-
parated CO2 is compressed to 152 bar by three stages intercooler
compressors for storage. The isentropic efficiency of the CO2 com-
pressors is 86%.
Table 1
Proximate and ultimate analysis results of sawdust.
Proximate analysis (by mass, %)
Fixed carbon 16.8
Volatile matter 83.12
Ash 0.08
Ultimate analysis (by mass, %)
Carbon 51
Hydrogen 6
Oxygen 42.8
Nitrogen 0.08
Sulfur 0.04
Moisture Content 16
HHV (MJ/kg) 17.09
G. Zang et al. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 78 (2018) 73–84

Fig. 4. Aspen Plus models of (a) MEA and (b) Selexol.

2.4. Economic assumptions
The power plant cost estimation in this paper is based on the
methodology employed by NETL, which is considered as a reliable tool
to compare the cost of power systems (Summers, 2011). Table 2 lists the
global economic assumptions of all the eight BIGCC systems options,
which are high-risk projects of Investor-Owned Utility (IOU) with the
capital expenditure period of five years (Matuszewski, 2013).
The capital cost of this paper is developed based on 2017 U.S.
dollars. Total Plant Cost (TPC) is the summation of the specific plant
costs for the major units of these power plants, which are scaled from
reference plants by Eq. (2).
C = C0 × (S / S0) f (2)
where C is the plant cost, C0 is the related cost from reference plants, S0
is the reference size, S is the designed plant size, and f is the scaling
exponent for each unit. Table 3 shows the scaling details of all the
critical units that list the scaling parameter basis, C0 , S0 , and f values
(Khorshidi et al., 2015).
Total Overnight Cost (TOC) is the most important economic para-
meter to show the overnight economic indicator of a power plant,
which comprises TPC (including contingency) and owner’s costs. The
estimation processes for the owner’s costs are illustrated in Table 4. In
Table 4, the operation labor cost is derived from reference (Black,
2013), and the biomass price is assumed to be 50$/ton.
To calculate the present value of the total cost of the BIGCC system
Because four of the eight BIGCC plants (AIC, AEC, OIC, and OEC)
use CCS technology to control CO2 emissions, the Cost of CO2 Avoided
(COA) is another major parameter to evaluate their economic feasi-
bility. COA represents the cost of CO2 capture, transport, and storage,
which is estimated by Eq. (5).
Cost of CO2 Avoided
(COECCS−COENon CCS )$/ MWh
=
(CO2 emissionNon CCS−CO2 emissionCCS ) tonne /MWh (5)
where COECCS is the Cost of Electricity of the power plant with CCS
technology in the unit of $/MWh, COENon CCS is the Cost of Electricity of
the power plant without CCS technology in the unit of $/MWh,
CO2 emissionNon CCS is the CO2 emission from BIGCC systems without
CCS in the unit of ton/MWh, and CO2 emission CCS is the CO2 emission
from BIGCC-CCS systems in the unit of ton/MWh.
Table 2
Global economic assumptions.
Parameter Value

design over the assumed lifetime and compare the different technology Basic assumption
lifetime costs divided by the electricity production, Levelized Cost of Type of developer/owner Investor-Owned Utility
Electricity (LCOE) is chosen as the cost metric in this study. Based on Risk profile High risk
the NETL economic analysis method, LCOE can be derived from Eq. (3), Taxes
Income tax rate 38%
LCOE = LF × COE (3)
Capital depreciation 20 years, 150% declining balance
Investment tax credit 0%
where LF is Levelization factors, which is 1.268 for IOU project (more
Tax Holiday 0 year
details of the calculation processes are shown in the Supplementary
Materials), and COE is the Cost of Electricity, which is the revenue Contracting and financing terms
Repayment term of debt 15 years
received by the generator during the first year of operation, defined by Grace period on debt repayment 0 year
Eq. (4), Debt reserve fund None

COE = (CCF × TOC + OCfix + CF × OCvar )/(CF × MWH ) (4) Analysis time periods
Capital expenditure period 5 years
where CCF is the capital charge factor with a value of 0.124 for five Operational period 30 years
Economic analysis period 35 years
years high-risk IOU. TOC represents the Total Overnight Cost, which
can be estimated from capital costs estimation. OC means the operating Treatment of capital costs
costs, the subscripts var and fix are used to discriminate between Capital cost escalation 3.60%
Distribution of Total Overnight Cost 5 years: 10%, 30%, 25%, 20%, 15%
variable and fixed operating costs, respectively. CF is the capacity Working capital 0
factor, which is assumed to be 0.8 for all the BIGCC systems. More Depreciated rate 100%
information on CCF and CF are provided in the supplementary mate-
Escalation of operating revenues and costs
rials. MWH is the annual net megawatt-hours of power output at full Escalation of COE, O&M cost, fuel costs 3.00%
capacity.

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Table 3
Parameters for scaling plant costs.
Plant Component Scaling Parameter C0 (M$) S0 f Ref

Biomass pretreatment, handling Biomass flowrate, ton/hr 14.11 34.00 0.79 Andersson et al. (2014)
ASU, O2, N2 compression O2 produced, kg/s 36.63 28.90 0.70 Campanari et al. (2014)
Gasifier and Accessories Biomass input, ton/hr 56.44 54.04 0.75 Andersson and Lundgren (2014)
Gas cleanup and piping (In) Syngas flowrate, kmol/s 153.89 6.06 1.00 Black (2013)
Gas cleanup and piping (Ex) Syngas flowrate, kmol/s 159.60 20.25 1.00 Black (2013)
WSG reactors H2+CO flowrate, kmol/s 21.33 2.45 0.65 Meerman et al. (2013c)
Selexol CO2 absorption Syngas flowrate, kmol/s 46.47 3.99 0.70 Jiang and Bhattacharyya (2017)
Internal Gas trubine Power output, MW 1.10 1.00 1.00 Pauschert (2009)
External Gas turbine Power output, MW 1.65 1.00 1.00 Riccio et al. (2000)
HRSG Heat transfer, MW 4.13 8.95 0.67 Craig and Mann (1996)
Steam turbine ST gross power, MW 65.46 276.30 0.67 Black (2013)
MEA CO2 absorption Syngas flowrate, kmol/hr 69.59 15.18 0.67 Singh et al. (2003)
CO2 drying, compression CO2 flowrate, kmol/s 55.39 4.18 1.00 Black (2013)

Table 4 advantages of the Selexol CO2 emission control technology compared

Estimation for the owner’s costs. with the MEA CO2 capture method.
Owner's cost Estimate basis

Pre-production cost 6 months operating labor 3.1.2. Economic analysis

1 month maintenance materials at full capacity The economic analysis is based on the assumptions that the bio-
1 month non-fuel consumables at full capacity mass-sawdust price is 50 $/ton (3.48 $/GJ), the CO2 emission price is 0
1 month waste disposal $/ton, and the availability factor is 0.8. Table 6 shows the components
25% of one month's fuel cost at full capacity
2% of TPC
of the TOC of the BIGCC systems without CO2 Capture and Storage
(AIV, OIV, AEV, and OEV). AEV has the lowest TOC at 3415 $/kW,
Inventory capital 0.5% of TPC
which is the result of the lower cost of the Externally Fired Gas Turbine
2 months supply of fuel at full capacity
2 months non-fuel consumables at full capacity cleaning subsystem and the absence of expensive ASU unit. Among the
BIGCC systems integrated with CCS technology (AIC, OIC, AEC, and
Land $0.74/m2
Financing cost 2.7% of TPC OEC), OEC has the lowest TOC at 5779 $/kW. The reason is that OEC
Other owner's costs 15% of TPC uses the Externally Fired Gas Turbine to replace the internally fired gas
turbine, which reduces the cost of the cleaning system, moreover, the
cost of Selexol is lower than that of MEA unit.
3. Results and discussion Based on the data, for the BIGCC systems without CCS, the
Externally Fired Gas Turbine is economically preferred over the in-
3.1. Plant performance and economics ternally fired gas turbine. For the BIGCC power systems without CCS,
the alternative using air gasification agent is cheaper than the oxygen/
3.1.1. Performance analysis steam gasification, whereas for the BIGCC-CCS power systems, the
Table 5 lists the performance results of the evaluated BIGCC systems oxygen/steam gasification agent integrated with Selexol CO2 capture
and the critical material flowrates data for economic analysis scaling. unit is more economical than the air gasification agent combined with
All the eight BIGCC power systems have the same biomass flowrate of MEA CO2 emission control technology.
5.4 ton/hr, which results in the capacity of BIGCC systems without CCS Fig. 5 illustrates the simulation results of LCOE and COA of the eight
is around 10 MW, while that of the BIGCC systems with CCS is around BIGCC systems. AEV has the lowest LCOE at 13.1 ¢/kWh, in contrast
6.5 MW. In Table 5, among the BIGCC plants without CCS (AIV, OIV, AEC has the highest LCOE at 25.9 ¢/kwh. Fig. 5 also shows the COA of
AEV, and OEV), AEV has the highest HHV efficiency of 39.8%, while different CO2 capture methods, where OI means that the COA calcu-
among BIGCC-CCS power systems (AIC, OIC, AEC, and OEC) the OEC lation is based on the economic analysis result of OIV and OIC.
has the highest HHV efficiency of 27.1%, which shows the performance Therefore, OI represents systems using the internally fired combustion

Table 5
Performance results of eight BIGCC plants.
AIV OIV AEV OEV AIC OIC AEC OEC

Gas turbine output, MW 5.26 5.94 4.34 5.48 5.26 5.04 4.34 4.56
Steam turbine output, MW 4.68 4.26 5.86 5.28 2.36 2.94 3.14 3.70
ASU, MW 0 0.88 0 0.88 0 0.88 0 0.88
CCS, MW 0 0 0 0 1.28 0.44 1.36 0.44
Total power, MW 9.94 9.32 10.2 9.88 6.34 6.66 6.12 6.94
CO2 Emissions, ton/MWh 0.926 0.990 0.902 0.933 0.145 0.326 0.150 0.313
CO2 captured, % 0 0 0 0 90 76.4 90 76.4
Biomass flowrate, ton/hr 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4
O2 flowrate, kmol/hr 0 65.52 0 65.52 0 65.52 0 65.52
Gasifier syngas product, kmol/hr 590 577 590 577 590 577 590 577
Heat transfer of HRSG, MW 10.16 10.16 13.64 13.16 10.16 7.66 13.64 10.18
CCS flowrate, kmol/hr 0 0 0 0 2521 261 2947 261
CO+H2 flowrate of WGS, kmol/hr 0 0 0 0 0 148.2 0 148.2
Water flowrate, ton/hr 17.1 17.28 20.84 20.5 17.1 14.6 20.84 17.3
Biomass input (HHV), MW 25.64 25.64 25.64 25.64 25.64 25.64 25.64 25.64
HHV efficiency, % 38.8 36.4 39.8 38.5 24.7 26.0 23.9 27.1

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G. Zang et al. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 78 (2018) 73–84

Table 6
Details of TPC and TOC of eight BIGCC power systems.
Unit (M$ 2017) AIV OIV AEV OEV AIC OIC AEC OEC

Biomass prepare and handling 2.36 2.36 2.36 2.36 2.36 2.36 2.36 2.36
ASU, O2 and N2 compression 0.00 1.46 0.00 1.46 0.00 1.46 0.00 1.46
Gasifier system and scrubbing 6.70 6.70 6.70 6.70 6.70 6.70 6.70 6.70
Gas cleanup and piping 4.16 4.08 1.30 1.26 4.16 4.08 1.30 1.26
WSG reactors 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.86 0.00 0.86
Selexol CO2 absorption 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.74 0.00 1.74
Gas turbine and accessories 5.80 6.54 7.18 9.06 5.80 5.54 7.18 7.52
HRSG 2.64 2.64 3.22 3.14 2.64 2.18 3.22 2.64
Steam turbine generator 2.50 2.34 2.92 2.72 1.58 1.84 1.92 2.14
MEA CO2 absorption 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.20 0.00 5.78 0.00
CO2 drying and compression 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 0.58 0.70 0.58
Contingency 4.83 5.22 4.74 5.34 5.73 5.47 5.83 5.45
TPC 28.99 26.12 23.68 26.70 28.64 27.34 29.16 27.26

Owner's cost
Preproduction Costs 0.88 0.94 0.86 0.94 1.06 1.02 1.08 1.02
Inventory Capital 0.44 0.46 0.44 0.46 0.48 0.46 0.5 0.46
Land 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02
Financing Cost 0.66 0.7 0.64 0.72 0.78 0.74 0.78 0.74
Other owner's cost 3.62 3.92 3.56 4 4.3 4.1 4.38 4.08
TOC 34.61 32.16 29.20 32.84 35.28 33.68 35.92 33.58
TOC ($/kW) 3481 4131 3415 3975 6642 6047 6990 5779

technology, oxygen/steam gasification agent, and Selexol CO2 capture

method. Similarly, OE is the externally fired combustion technology
combined with oxygen/steam gasification agent and Selexol CO2 cap-
ture method, AI represents the internally fired combustion technology
integrates with air gasification agent and MEA CO2 capture method,
and AE is the externally fired combustion technology combined with air
gasification agent and MEA CO2 capture method. In Fig. 5, OI and OE
have the COA of 84.2 $/ton-CO2 and 86.2 $/ton-CO2, which shows that
the cost of CO2 using Selexol CO2 control method only changes slightly
when the combustion method changes. However, for the air gasification
systems, the externally fired combustion system (AE) has a higher COA
at 135.1 $/ton than that of the internally fired combustion system (AI)
at 112.4 $/ton, indicating the gas turbine combustion method has
larger effects on the COA result when using MEA CO2 capture tech-
nology. Compared with the MEA method, the COA of Selexol method is
lower, confirming the economic advantage of Selexol CO2 control Fig. 6. Effects of biomass price on LCOE.
method over the MEA method.

3.2. Effect of biomass price on LCOE and COA
Fig. 6 shows the change of LCOE with the increase of biomass price.
In Fig. 6, the LCOE of all the eight BIGCC power systems rises when the
biomass price increases. When the biomass price increases from 0 $/ton
to 80 $/ton, among all the CO2 venting systems (AIV, OIV, AEV, and
OEV), AEV has the lowest LCOE increase of 5.5 ¢/kWh and OIV has the
highest LCOE growth of 6.0 ¢/kWh. Similarly, compared with all the
other BIGCC-CCS systems (AIC, OIC, AEC, and OEC), when the biomass
price increases to 80 $/ton, OEC has the lowest LCOE growth of 8.1
¢/kWh and OIC has the highest LCOE increase of 9.1 ¢/kWh.
The average sale electricity price of 10.27 ¢/kWh has been selected
as the reference based on the statistic study of United State energy in-
formation administration to evaluate the economic indicators of BIGCC
power systems (Energy, 2017). The eight BIGCC systems have been
separated into four groups as shown in Fig. 5, and the detailed com-
parison results of LCOE and COA are illustrated in Fig. 7, in which the
blue bars show the LCOE of power plants without CCS, the yellows bars

Fig. 5. (a) LCOE result of BIGCC systems with the components share and (b) the result of COA.

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G. Zang et al.
Fig. 7. LCOE and COA of BIGCC systems compared with the electricity sale price based on different biomass prices. (For interpretation of the references to colour in
the figure text, the reader is referred to the web version of this article).
show the LCOE of power plants with CCS, and the red line symbols
show the COA of all these power plants.
When the biomass price is 50 $/ton (3.48 $/GJ), both LCOE and
COA of BIGCC systems are higher than that of electricity sale price. In
contrast, when the biomass price decreases to 10 $/ton, the LCOE of air
gasification BIGCC systems without CCS (AIV and AEV) are 10.8 $/kWh
and 10.3 $/kWh, which are close to the current electricity sale price. It
indicates that when the biomass price is lower than 10 $/ton, air ga-
sification BIGCC systems without CCS can compete with current elec-
tricity generation technologies. When the biomass price decreases, the
COA of all the groups drops, showing that the decreasing biomass price
also has the potential to reduce the CO2 avoided cost for both Selexol
and MEA CO2 capture methods.
3.3. Effect of CO2 emission price on LCOE and COA
Fig. 8 shows the LCOE variation affected by the CO2 emission price.
Because one ton of the feedstock-sawdust can absorb 38.7 mol CO2
during the growing processes, all the BIGCC systems without CCS
technology are assumed to be carbon neutral, and all the BIGCC-CCS
systems have negative CO2 emissions. Based on this assumption, the
CO2 emission price has no effect on the LCOE of the BIGCC systems
without CCS technology, whereas it has negative effects on the LCOE of
BIGCC-CCS systems. Fig. 8 shows that when the CO2 emission price
increases from 0 $/ton to 120 $/ton, the LCOE of OEC has the lowest
decrease of 21.5 ¢/kWh and that of AEC has the highest decline of 25.9
¢/kWh. Compared with the impact of the biomass price, the CO2
emission price has a larger effect on the LCOE of BIGCC-CCS systems
but has no effect on the LCOE of BIGCC systems without CCS tech-
nology.
Fig. 9 shows the comparative results of BIGCC systems based on
different CO2 emission prices, where the blue bars show the LCOE of
power plants without CCS, the yellows bars show the LCOE of power
plants with CCS, and the red line symbols show the COA of all these
power plants. In Fig. 9, when the CO2 emission price is 0 $/ton, the
LCOE of power plants with CCS are higher than that of power plants
without CCS, indicating that without CO2 credit the application of CCS
technology increases the BIGCC power plants cost. Nevertheless, when
the CO2 emission price is 90 $/ton, the LCOE of power plants with CCS
is lower than that of power plants without CCS, demonstrating that the
application of CCS technology has the potential to reduce the power
plant cost when the CO2 emission price is sufficiently high.
Based on the analysis above, even though the application of CCS
technology increases the LCOE of the BIGCC systems when the CO2
emission price is 0 $/ton, it has the potential to improve the economic
indicator of BIGCC systems when the CO2 emission price is higher than
90 $/ton.
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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 78 (2018) 73–84
3.4. Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis
3.4.1. Sensitivity analysis
Fig. 10 shows the effects of the availability factor, the capital cost,
and the O&M cost on the LCOE of eight BIGCC power systems. Shown in
Fig. 10, when the availability factor increases from 60% to 100%, the
LCOE of the CO2 venting systems decreases 4.6 ¢/kWh–5.5 ¢/kWh, and
that of the CCS plants reduces 7.8 ¢/kWh–9.4 ¢/kWh. Therefore, the
effects of the availability factor on the LCOE of BIGCC-CCS systems are
larger than that of the BIGCC power plants without CCS.
Fig. 10 also demonstrates the effects of the capital cost and the O&M
cost on LCOE of the eight BIGCC systems. When the capital cost changes
from −20% to +20%, the LCOE raises 2.6 ¢/kWh–3.1 ¢/kWh and 4.4
¢/kWh–5.3 ¢/kWh for CO2 venting and captured systems, respectively.
When the fixed O&M cost rises 40%, the LCOE of BIGCC systems
without CCS technology increases 0.9 ¢/kWh–1.1 ¢/kWh, and that of
BIGCC-CCS systems increases 1.6 ¢/kWh–1.9 ¢/kWh. In contrast, the
LCOE of the BIGCC systems without CCS technology and the BIGCC-CCS
plants grows 1.8 ¢/kWh–2.0 ¢/kWh and 2.6 ¢/kWh–3.2 ¢/kWh, re-
spectively, as the variable O&M cost increased 40%. Therefore, by
comparing the four factors illustrated in Fig. 10, it shows that the
availability factor has the largest effects on the LCOE of these BIGCC
systems, the effect of the capital cost is secondary, and the effect of the
variable O&M cost is smaller than previous two but larger than that of
the fixed O&M on the LCOE of BIGCC systems.
3.4.2. Uncertainty analysis
To analyze the uncertainty of the economic model used in this
paper, an uncertainty method based on Monte Carlo sampling approach
has been employed (Rochedo and Szklo, 2013). The simulation shown
Fig. 11 is conducted by varying the operational period from the year 4
to year 30, with the fuel price is 50 $/ton (3.48 $/GJ), the CO2 emission
price is 0 $/ton, and the availability factor is 0.8. Because OEC and AEV
Fig. 8. Effects of CO2 emission price on LCOE.
G. Zang et al. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 78 (2018) 73–84

Fig. 9. LCOE and COA of BIGCC systems based on different biomass price. (For interpretation of the references to colour in the figure text, the reader is referred to the
web version of this article).

Fig. 10. Effects of (a) availability factor, (b) capital cost, (c) fixed and (d) variable O&M cost on LCOE.

Fig. 11. Evolution of LCOE of BIGCC systems with the operational period.
have the lowest LCOE among the BIGCC-CCS systems and BIGCC sys-
tems without CCS, respectively, they are selected as the basic cases for
the uncertainty analysis.
The variable O&M cost, the fixed O&M cost, the capital cost, the
availability factor, and the fuel price are chosen as variables because all
of them have impacts on LCOE. All of these variables are assumed to
have the changing ranges around 10%, follow the triangular distribu-
tions, and are independent with each other. The lower and higher limit
of the variables of the variable O&M cost (without considering of the
change of the fuel price), the fixed O&M cost, the capital cost, the
availability factor, and the fuel price are 90%, 110%; 90%, 110%; 90%,
110%; 0.7, 0.9; and 40 $/ton, 60 $/ton (shown in Table S3), respec-
tively. By conducting 5000 random calculations, the 86% confidence
with 7% inferior limit and 93% superior limit is shown in Fig. 12.
In Fig. 12, an 86% confidence interval based on LCOE distribution in
the year 30 is 1.9 ¢/kWh for AEV, and 3 ¢/kWh for OEC. Moreover, in
the year 16, the 86% confidence interval of LCOE of AEV and OEC are
2.3 ¢/kWh and 3.8 ¢/kWh, respectively. Considering the higher LCOE
of OEC compared with AEV and the higher LCOE of year 30 than that of
year 16, there is no significant difference between the confidence in-
terval of BIGCC-CCS and BIGCC systems without CCS during different
operational periods. Therefore, the LCOE result is stable even when
some of the design assumptions are modified.

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G. Zang et al.
Fig. 12. Median, inferior limit, superior limit and confidence interval of LCOE of (a) AEV and (b) OEC.
4. Conclusions
This paper analyzes the economic indicators of eight BIGCC power
systems based on the NETL economic analysis model. These systems
include the potential improvements in biomass gasification agent,
syngas combustion method, and CCS technologies. There are four main
conclusions:
(1) The economic analysis results show that AEV has the lowest TOC
and LCOE at 3415 $/kW and 13.1 ¢/kWh among all the BIGCC
systems without CCS. OEC has the lowest TOC and LCOE at 5779
$/kW and 21.5 ¢/kWh among all the BIGCC system with CCS. The
result also confirms the economic benefits of the Externally Fired
Gas Turbine applications in the BIGCC systems without CCS and the
Selexol CO2 capture technology compared with the internally fired
gas turbine and the MEA CO2 capture method, respectively.
(2) By comparing four groups of BIGCC systems based on different
biomass price and CO2 emission price, it is shown that when the
biomass price is lower than 10 $/ton, air gasification BIGCC system
without CCS can compete with current electricity generation tech-
nologies, and when the CO2 credit is as high as 90 $/ton, the ap-
plication of CCS technology can reduce the power plant cost.
(3) The sensitivity analysis compares the impact of the availability
factor, the capital cost and the O&M cost on the LCOE of BIGCC
power systems. The result shows the availability factor has the
largest effects on the LCOE, the effects of the capital cost is sec-
ondary, and the effect of the variable O&M cost is smaller than that
of previous two parameters but larger than that of the fixed O&M on
the LCOE.
(4) Monte Carlo simulation method is used to analyze the uncertainty
of LCOE of these BIGCC power systems in different operational
period, it shows that the 86% confidence interval based on LCOE
distribution is less than 4 ¢/kWh, which means that the LCOE does
not change a lot even if some of the design assumptions are mod-
ified.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Special Guest Researcher of
Coordination of Improvements in Higher Education (CAPES) [grant
number MEC/MCTI/CAPES/CNPq/FAPs No 71/2013]; the National
Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the
Research Support Foundation of the State of Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG)
[grant number Proposal: 152583. Process: 88881.030460/2013-01] for
financial support, and the University of Iowa, US Poultry Association
for their support of this work.
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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 78 (2018) 73–84
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