International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 3 (2009) 683–692

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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control

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

Electricity systems with near-zero emissions of CO2 based on wind energy

and coal gasification with CCS and hydrogen storage
John Davison
IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, Orchard Business Centre, Stoke Orchard, Cheltenham GL52 7RZ, United Kingdom

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: Emissions from electricity generation will have to be reduced to near-zero to meet targets for reducing
Received 1 July 2009 overall greenhouse gas emissions. Variable renewable energy sources such as wind will help to achieve
Received in revised form 18 August 2009 this goal but they will have to be used in conjunction with other flexible power plants with low-CO2
Accepted 24 August 2009
emissions. A process which would be well suited to this role would be coal gasification hydrogen
Available online 22 September 2009
production with CCS, underground buffer storage of hydrogen and independent gas turbine power
generation. The gasification hydrogen production and CO2 capture and storage equipment could operate
Keywords:
at full load and only the power plants would need to operate flexibly and at low load, which would result
CCS
CO2 capture
in substantial practical and economic advantages. This paper analyses the performances and costs of
Hydrogen such plants in scenarios with various amounts of wind generation, based on data for power demand and
Wind wind energy variability in the UK. In a scenario with 35% wind generation, overall emissions of CO2 could
Costs be reduced by 98–99%. The cost of abating CO2 emissions from the non-wind residual generation using
Electricity the technique proposed in this paper would be less than 40% of the cost of using coal-fired power plants
with integrated CCS.
ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction To provide a reliable continuous electricity supply wind energy

Large reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases will be
necessary to reduce the risk of harmful climate change. At a
meeting in L’Aquila, Italy in July 2009 leaders of the G8 countries
supported a goal of developed countries reducing emissions of
greenhouse gases in aggregate by 80% or more by 2050 compared
to 1990 or more recent years. Consistent with this ambitious long-
term objective they agreed to undertake robust aggregate and
individual mid-term reductions (G8, 2009). To achieve this goal
and to improve national energy self sufficiency it is expected that
there will be large increases in the use of renewable energy for
electricity generation. For example the EU’s Renewable Energy
Directive commits the EU to provide 20% of its overall energy from
renewable sources by 2020. To contribute to this overall target
each member country has its own target, which for the UK is 15%.
The UK has limited availability and use of renewable heat energy so
it is expected that around 35% of electricity will have to be
generated using renewable energy to enable the UK to meet its
overall target for use of renewable energy. There are significant
constraints of the usable resources of hydro and biomass energy in
the UK so there will need to be a large expansion in the use of the
variable renewable energy sources, particularly wind energy.
E-mail address: john.davison@ieaghg.org.
needs to be used in combination with other generation technol-
ogies and/or energy storage. Conventional natural gas or coal-fired
power plants can be used but the emissions from such plants
would make it difficult to achieve the necessary deep reductions in
overall emissions. Wind energy will therefore need to be used in
combination with other low-CO2 power generation technologies.
Apart from renewables, the two leading technologies are fossil fuel
power generation with CO2 capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear
power. Nuclear power plants are not well suited to operating in
systems with large scale use of wind power because the operating
flexibility of current nuclear plant designs is relatively poor and
plants are capital intensive and would therefore have high costs if
operated at low load factors. The plants could be operated at full
load and the surplus electricity that would be available at times of
low demand could be used to produce hydrogen by electrolysis but
this would involve high energy efficiency penalties and high costs
(Floch et al., 2007; González et al., 2003).
Conventional fossil fuel power plants with CCS are also
relatively capital intensive and consequently technical and
economic analyses have focussed almost exclusively on high load
factor operation (IPCC, 2005). The operating flexibility of CCS
plants is currently uncertain because little information is available
in the public domain (Alie et al., 2009) and without such
information it has not been possible to undertake detailed
technical and economic analysis of conventional CCS plants in

1750-5836/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijggc.2009.08.006
684 J. Davison / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 3 (2009) 683–692
high wind energy systems. This paper assesses a technique that
avoids the need for flexible operation of CCS plants. The technique
involves production of hydrogen in coal gasification plants with
CCS, underground buffer storage of hydrogen and power genera-
tion in gas turbine-based power plants which are not integrated
with the gasification plants. The paper compares the costs and CO2
emissions of this technique and alternative techniques for use in
electricity systems with various amounts of wind power genera-
tion. The paper does not attempt to determine the economic merits
of wind power generation compared to other forms of generation.
2. Technology descriptions
2.1. Integrated gasification combined cycles (IGCC) with CCS
The technology of integrated gasification combined cycles
(IGCC) with pre-combustion capture of CO2 is well known (IPCC,
2005; Damen et al., 2006). In an IGCC plant with CO2 capture, coal,
oil or biomass is reacted with oxygen and in some cases steam in a
gasifier at a pressure typically in the range of 2.5–8 MPa and a
temperature of around 1400–1500 8C. The oxygen is normally
produced from air in a cryogenic air separation unit. Molten slag is
quenched and removed from the gasifier and the product gas is
cooled in a water quench, in some cases preceded by heat recovery
steam generators. The product gas, consisting mainly of CO, CO2, H2
and H2O, is then fed to a catalytic shift converter where CO is
reacted with steam to produce more H2 and CO2. The gas is then fed
to an acid gas removal plant where CO2 and an H2S-rich gas are
separated. Sulphur is produced from the H2S-rich gas in a Claus
plant and the CO2 is compressed to typically 10 MPa for pipeline
transport and underground storage. The hydrogen-rich gas from
the acid gas removal unit is fed to a gas turbine combined cycle
plant, along with some nitrogen from the air separation unit or
steam to maximise the throughput of the turbine, stabilise
combustion and reduce NOX emissions. In some plants part of
the compressed air input to the air separation unit is extracted
from the gas turbine compressor.
2.2. Separate hydrogen production and power generation
IGCC has been developed mainly for continuous operation to
satisfy a market for base load power generation and IGCC plants
have relatively poor operating load flexibility (Norris et al., 2004).
However, a highly flexible system suitable for future electricity
grids can be created by disaggregating the gasification and CO2
capture units from the combined cycle power generation plant and
by introducing intermediate buffer storage of the hydrogen-rich
gas. This enables the gasification, gas treating and CO2 capture and
storage units to be operated at continuous full load, which
minimises operating difficulties and maximises the utilisation of
the capital investment. Only the combined cycle plant which has
relatively low capital intensity and better operating flexibility has
to be operated at the lower load factors required to satisfy the
variability in electricity demand. Another advantage of separating
the gasification and power generation units is that the operating
availability would be higher because operation of the combined
cycle plant would not be constrained by availability of the
gasification plant and problems related to plant complexity would
be reduced. The main disadvantage is that energy integration and
hence thermal efficiency would be lower and capital costs would
be marginally higher.
IEA GHG (2005) includes designs of non-integrated gasification
combined cycle plants in which the gasification, fuel gas
processing and CO2 capture plant is located on one site and the
combined cycle plant is located on a separate site several
kilometres away. The gasification plant site includes its own small
combined cycle power plant which uses about 18% of the
hydrogen-rich fuel gas product. This enables the plant to be self
sufficient in steam and power and allows the heat recovered from
the gasification and fuel processing units to be used efficiently.
In typical designs of IGCC plants with CO2 capture some
nitrogen from the air separation unit is usually fed to the gas
turbine. In IEA GHG (2005) nitrogen is added to the hydrogen-rich
gas before it is piped to the combined cycle plant. For the type of
system proposed in this paper it would be preferable to produce
and store hydrogen-rich gas without added nitrogen to minimise
the storage volume. Nitrogen could be fed separately from the
gasification plants to the gas turbine plants, although this would
require more pipelines if the plants were on separate sites. The
quantity of nitrogen available from a gasification plant’s air
separation unit is normally greater than the quantity required by
the gas turbine so sufficient nitrogen would be available most of
the time, even when hydrogen was being withdrawn from storage.
A relatively small amount of nitrogen could be stored to cope with
peaks in demand or steam could be used to supplement nitrogen at
times of peak demand, thereby avoiding the need for nitrogen
storage.
2.3. Hydrogen storage
Bulk underground storage of gaseous hydrogen in salt caverns is
a commercial technology but it has not been commercialized for
other geologies (Forsberg, 2006), although natural gas is stored
widely in depleted natural gas fields, aquifers and salt caverns.
Examples of underground storage of hydrogen are a facility in
Texas which is connected to a 310 mile hydrogen pipeline (Praxair,
2009), a 30 million m3 facility in Texas operated by ConocoPhillips
(Forsberg, 2006) and a store at Tesside, UK (Roads2HyCom, 2009).
Hydrogen-rich town gas has been stored by the city of Kiel in
Germany and by Gaz de France in an aquifer with a capacity of
330 million m3 at Beynes, France. No gas loss or safety problems
have been reported (Roads2HyCom, 2009). A description of
hydrogen cavern operation is presented by Parker (2006).
Information on costs and technologies of underground hydrogen
storage has been collected by Amos, 1998, showing published
capital costs of underground hydrogen storage varying greatly,
between 1 and 40 US$/kg of storage capacity. IEA (2005) gives costs
at the bottom of this range. For this study a conservative cost of
s10/kg of H2 has been assumed. This is in line with the recent
reported cost per m3 of a 370 million m3 salt cavern natural gas
storage facility at Aldbrough in the UK (Scottish and Southern
Energy, 2009). Depleted natural gas reservoirs may be substan-
tially cheaper than salt caverns for gas storage (UK Energy
Research Centre, 2009), so if some depleted gas reservoirs could be
used the costs would be lower than those reported in this paper.
Further work is needed to determine the global potential capacity
for geological storage of hydrogen.
2.4. Achieving near-zero emissions of CO2
Another challenge facing power plants with CCS is to increase
the percentage CO2 capture. 85–90% CO2 capture has been
considered to be acceptable in the past (Damen et al., 2006; IPCC,
2005) but it may not be adequate when an overall national GHG
reduction of 80% is required, because reducing emissions in some
other sectors such as transport and other distributed energy
consumers will be relatively difficult and expensive. The percen-
tage capture in gasification combined cycle plants can be increased
to over 90% by including more extensive shift conversion and CO2
separation but this substantially increases the specific cost of CO2
capture (Gadde et al., 2007; Chen and Rubin, 2009). This paper
proposes an alternative method of substantially increasing the
 J. Davison / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 3 (2009) 683–692
percentage CO2 capture in non-integrated gasification combined
cycles which involves feeding the fuel gas from the acid gas
removal unit to a pressure swing adsorption (PSA) unit. The PSA
unit produces high purity (99.5 mol%) hydrogen, which would be
piped to off-site combined cycle power plants, and a tail gas which
would be fed to a small on-site combined cycle power plant which
would generate just sufficient power for use by the gasification and
CO2 capture plant. Such a plant is described in IEA GHG (2007). In
that reference, the PSA tail gas on average consists of 45 mol% H2,
18% N2, 2% Ar, 14% CO and 20% CO2. Some of the tail gas is
compressed and fed to the on-site gas turbine and some is used in
two stages of post-firing of the gas turbine’s heat recovery steam
generator (HRSG). As well as generating steam the HRSG also
superheats steam from the gasification and gas processing units
prior to feeding to a steam turbine. In IEA GHG (2007) the flue gas
from the HRSG is vented to the atmosphere but as it has a high CO2
concentration (around 10%) and low concentrations of undesirable
impurities it would be a suitable feedstock for a post-combustion
CO2 capture unit. The overall percentage CO2 capture would then
be 98.5%, based on 85% pre-combustion capture and 90% post-
combustion capture from combusted PSA tail gas. In addition to
making it feasible to capture a high percentage of the CO2,
producing high purity hydrogen would reduce the required
volume of hydrogen buffer storage and it could also facilitate
development of a market for hydrogen for use in vehicles and other
distributed energy consumers, which would help to reduce CO2
emissions from these consumers.
Separating the gasification and combined cycle plants and
including PSA increases the capital cost per net kW of electricity by
around 6% compared to an integrated plant and reduces the
thermal efficiency by around 1.7% percentage points. Adding post-
combustion capture to the combusted PSA tail gas would add a
further 9% to the capital cost per kW of electricity and reduce the
efficiency by about 1.3 percentage points.
The detailed analysis in this paper is based on pre-combustion
capture of CO2 in a plant producing high purity hydrogen,
combined with post-combustion capture of CO2 from the PSA
off-gas as described above but a sensitivity case of a plant with no
PSA or post-combustion capture, resulting in 85% CO2 capture, is
also assessed.
3. Methodology and input data
3.1. Prior work
Energy system economic models such as the MARKAL linear
programming model have been used to analyse combinations of
energy technologies in national and regional energy systems. The
strength of such models is that they include entire energy systems
and supply and demand chains, enabling the best use of resources
to be determined. A limitation is the representation of energy
storage and variability of supply and demand, although this may be
addressed in future versions (Joffe et al., 2007).
Electricity system models, which include hourly variations in
supply and demand have been used to analyse large scale use of
wind energy in electricity systems (Poyry, 2009). However large
scale use of CCS with flexible operation does not appear to have yet
been included in detailed electricity system models which include
large scale use of renewable energy.
The importance of flexibility in hydrogen and electricity
production plants was identified by Starr et al. (2005). IEA GHG
(2007) has analysed the use of gasification combined cycle plants
capable of co-producing variable ratios of hydrogen and electricity
in conjunction with hydrogen storage in the context of a future
scenario in which hydrogen is used on a large scale for distributed
energy consumers. The analysis included hourly variations in
685
electricity demand but did not include large scale use of renewable
energy. The absence of renewable energy and the inclusion of a
large demand for hydrogen in the scenarios resulted in a greater
incentive for co-production plants rather than the separate
hydrogen production and power generation plants analysed in
this paper.
3.2. Overall methodology
The first stage of the analysis involved modelling the electricity
generation system. Half-hourly data on electricity demand and
projected wind energy production in the UK were obtained as
described in Sections 3.3 and 3.4. A proportion of the electricity
demand was assumed to be provided by ‘inflexible’ generating
plants which operate at base load. This could include inflexible
fossil fuel plants with CCS or nuclear plants and it could also
include an allowance for minimum continuous load operation of
flexible fossil fuel plants. The net residual electricity demand to be
satisfied by flexible fossil fuel power plants was derived on a half-
hourly basis by subtracting the renewable and inflexible genera-
tion from the electricity demand.
The second stage of the analysis involved modelling the
performance and costs of power plants with CCS and hydrogen
storage and comparing the results against alternative power
generation and CCS technologies. The overall annual quantity of
hydrogen required was calculated from the overall annual residual
power demand. Hydrogen was assumed to be provided by plants
operating at constant load. The quantity of hydrogen storage that
was required was calculated taking account of the variability in
hydrogen production and demand throughout the year. Costs and
CO2 emissions of hydrogen production and storage, power
generation plants and CO2 transport and storage were calculated
using input data described in Section 3.5. Costs and emissions of
alternative technologies were calculated using input data
described in Section 3.6. All calculations were undertaken using
Excel spreadsheet software.
3.3. Power demand
The analyses in this paper are based on half-hourly data for the
electricity demand in the UK in the year prior to 13th August 2009
(NETA, 2009; National Grid, 2009). The maximum and minimum
electricity demands during this period were 59.3 and 22.2 GW.
Electricity demand is lower than average overnight, at weekends
and in the summer. Non-base load generation, i.e. power
generation above this annual minimum load accounts for 41% of
total annual generation.
Electricity demand varies from year to year due to the weather,
as discussed in Section 3.4. The magnitude and variability of
demand for electricity from centralised generation plants may also
change significantly in future, due to economic growth, energy
efficiency improvements, greater use of distributed generation,
greater use of electricity as an energy carrier for cars and space
heating and the use of ‘smart grid’ technology which could reduce
net demand variability. Climate change may also affect the
demand profile, for example by increasing demand for air
conditioning and reducing demand for heating. However, the
impacts of these various changes on the overall electricity demand
profile are highly uncertain and have therefore not been taken into
account in this analysis.
The timing of the demand peaks and the seasonal variations are
country dependent, for example in the UK demand during the
winter is normally higher than during the summer, mainly due to
increased demand for heating. In countries that have hotter
summers and a high electricity demand for air conditioning, such
as Japan and the USA, the peak demand is typically in summer.
686 J. Davison / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 3 (2009) 683–692
Other country-specific analyses of the technology proposed in this
paper should be undertaken.
3.4. Wind energy generation and residual electricity demand
The analyses in this paper are based on half-hourly data for
wind power generation in the UK during the period 24th
October 2008 to 13th August 2009 (NETA, 2009). To provide
analysis for a full year in the absence of further data, wind
generation for the period 13th August to 23rd October 2008
were derived from the NETA (2009) data using the relationships
between monthly wind availability in the UK (Sinden, 2007).
Scenarios with levels of wind power generation that are
substantially higher than at present have been analysed by
direct scaling of the current wind power generation data. In the
base case scenario in this paper the installed wind generation
capacity was assumed to be 50 GW, which is substantially less
than the UK’s potential for ‘competitive’ wind generation (EEA,
2009). The capacity of the inflexible plants was assumed to be
10 GW, which corresponds approximately to the capacity of
nuclear plants in the UK.
The overall variability of wind power generation in an
electricity system depends on the geographical distribution of
the wind turbines. Greater distribution reduces the amount of
variability (Sinden, 2007; Drake and Hubacek, 2007). Offshore
wind turbines which will be used more in future are generally
expected to have higher load factors and lower variability than
onshore turbines. The analysis in this paper may therefore be based
on pessimistic levels of wind power variability.
Electricity demand and wind energy generation will vary from
year to year depending on the weather. Annual wind energy output
in the UK varied by 13% over an 8-year period (Poyry, 2009). The
analysis of CCS schemes presented in this paper could be refined by
including analysis of wind energy production and electricity
demands over several years. An important criterion would the
correlation between wind energy production and electricity
demand. If wind energy availability is higher in years when there
are lower temperatures and higher electricity demands the
demand for hydrogen for power generation could be relatively
unaffected.
Other variable renewable generation technologies, such as
solar, tidal and wave energy, may become widely used in future.
The rate at which these technologies will be developed and
deployed is currently uncertain so they have not been included in
the analysis. The analysis could be repeated if required incorpor-
ating these other renewable technologies.
In some countries there is a substantial amount of hydro power
generation, including pumped storage, which can be used to
provide flexible generation. In the UK there is currently only a
small hydro power generation capacity and the potential for
substantial increases may be modest. Interconnections with
adjacent countries are also currently used to provide flexibility,
for example to accommodate high levels of wind generation in
Denmark and high levels of nuclear generation in France. For
simplification, hydro power generation and international inter-
connections were not included in the analysis. In practice they
could have a significant role particularly for meeting short term
variations.
3.5. Plant performance and cost input data
The input data for assessment of the gasification-hydrogen-CCS
power generation technology are shown in Table 1.
Costs of building and operating power generation and other
process plants are highly uncertain at present due to the volatile
global economy and large fluctuations in fuel prices. Capital costs
increased sharply from around 2003 until 2008 due to increasing
raw material prices and the tight market for equipment and
services. Since then raw material prices have fallen back
substantially and the general economic downturn has reduced
the demand for new plants, which is expected to have had an
impact on prices. Similarly, fuel prices increased greatly but have
fallen back due to reduced demand. The costs of hydrogen
production plants (excluding post-combustion capture) used in
this paper were derived from IEA GHG (2007). Costs from this
reference were used rather than the costs on a 2008 basis given in
IEA GHG (2008) because 2008 was at the height of the economic
cycle when material and fuel costs were substantially higher than
those at present and also higher than those in earlier years. The
2007 costs are considered to be a closer representation of current
and future costs but they are still substantially higher than costs in
earlier years. Although absolute costs are highly uncertain, the
relative costs of different technology options are subject to lower
uncertainty because many of the cost escalation factors apply
broadly to different types of plants. The plant capital costs given in
Table 1 include a 10% contingency and a 7% allowance for owners
costs. Interest during construction is excluded from these capitals
costs but it is taken into account in the derivation of the annual
capital charge factor.
The cost of combined cycle power plants was derived from IEA
GHG (2007), IEA GHG (2005) and Klara (2007). The cost of post-
combustion capture on the combusted PSA tail gas at the hydrogen
plant was derived from IEA GHG (2004) and is included in the
hydrogen plant cost given below. The fuel prices and annual plant
availability assumptions are from IEA GHG (2009). The annual load
factor of the hydrogen plants is the same as the annual plant
availability, because hydrogen storage enables the plant to operate
whenever it is technically available. The combined cycle plant load
factor is dictated by the power demand and is therefore lower than
the plant availability. The annual capital charge factor of 10%
corresponds to an 8% discount rate in constant money values, a
plant life of 25 years and a three-year construction schedule (IEA
GHG, 2009).
Maintenance and miscellaneous operating costs were assumed
to be a fixed percentage of the plant capital cost. The main cost is
maintenance and other significant costs include local taxes,
insurance, operating labour and chemicals and consumables.
The costs were assumed to be fixed because currently there is
insufficient information available in the public domain to enable
the effects of lower load factors on maintenance costs to be
determined accurately.
The cost of CO2 transport and storage was assumed to be a fixed
cost. In practise the cost per tonne would be higher if the CO2
flowrate was variable, so the ability of the gasification hydrogen
production and storage scheme to provide a constant full load flow
to the CO2 transport and storage system would be an additional
benefit not taken into account in this analysis.
The plant input data are based on current technology. By the
time the technologies could be applied on the scale proposed in
this paper significant improvements are expected to have
occurred.
3.6. Input data for alternative and base line technologies
Costs of base line technologies without CCS are needed to
calculate the cost of avoiding CO2 emissions. The technologies used
in this analysis are a natural gas combined cycle plant and a
pulverised coal-fired power plant. Pulverised coal was selected
because it is expected to be the lowest cost coal-fired technology
without CO2 capture (Klara, 2007).
The gasification-hydrogen-CCS technology was compared
against two alternative types of power plant with integrated
 J. Davison / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 3 (2009) 683–692 687

Table 1
Input data for gasification-hydrogen-CCS power generation technology.

Parameter Units Value

CO2 production kg/MWh (LHV) coal 328

Pre-combustion CO2 capture
(gasification plant)
Post-combustion CO2 capture
(combusted PSA tail gas)
Overall CO2 capture
% 85
% 90
% 98.5

Hydrogen plant thermal % (LHV basis) 56.6

efficiency without tail
gas capture % (HHV basis) 64.0
Fig. 1. Electricity demand, wind generation and total residual demand (March
Hydrogen plant thermal % (LHV basis) 54.1 2009).
efficiency with tail gas
capture % (HHV basis) 61.2

Combined cycle hydrogen % (LHV basis) 56.0

power plant thermal
efficiency % (HHV basis) 47.3

Gasification hydrogen plant s/kW hydrogen 1180

capital cost
Combined cycle power plant s/kWe 600
capital cost
Hydrogen storage capital cost s/kg 10
Annual plant operating availability % 85
Annual capital charge factor % of capital cost 10
Annual maintenance and % of capital cost 4
miscellaneous operating costs
Coal price s/GJ (LHV basis) 2
CO2 transport and storage cost s/tonne CO2 5

CO2 capture: a natural gas combined cycle plant and a pulverised
coal plant both with post-combustion CO2 capture. Post-combus-
tion capture was selected for the coal case rather than IGCC
because it was considered that IGCC would not have sufficient
operating flexibility to satisfy the variability in the residual
electricity demand. For the purposes of the analysis in this paper it
is assumed that post-combustion plants would be sufficiently
flexible but that is still an uncertainty.
Another alternative would be to use natural gas partial
oxidation to produce hydrogen. This was not assessed in detail
because IEA GHG (2005) showed that for the fuel prices assumed in
this study it would be more expensive than coal gasification
hydrogen production.
The input data for these technologies, shown in Table 2, are
based on data in IEA GHG (2004), IEA GHG (2005), IEA GHG (2007)
and Klara (2007). The percentage capture of CO2 is lower in the
natural gas combined cycle plant than in the coal-fired plant
because of the lower CO2 concentration in the flue gas. All other
parameters are the same as for the hydrogen CCS technology,
shown in Table 1.
The natural gas based power plants may require natural gas
storage but this has not been included in this analysis as it was
assumed the costs were included in the specified cost of natural
gas. The costs of CO2 abatement for the coal based technologies
compared to a natural gas base line case would be lower if natural
gas storage was an additional cost.
Fig. 2. Average monthly electricity demand, wind generation and total residual
demand.
4. Analysis results
4.1. Overall electricity system performance
The total UK electricity demand, wind generation and total
residual demand (electricity demand minus wind energy genera-
tion) are shown in Fig. 1 for an illustrative period (May, 2009)
based on half-hourly electricity demand and 50 GW of installed
wind generation capacity.
As the amount of wind generation capacity increases, the
residual demand decreases until there are times when residual
demand becomes negative, i.e. potential electricity generation
exceeds demand, as shown in Fig. 1. At such times some wind or
‘inflexible’ generators could be shut down or the surplus electricity
could be used in energy storage systems such as pumped
hydro storage, compressed air storage or batteries. These storage
technologies would normally be used mainly for relatively short
term storage over a few minutes or hours. Surplus electricity could
be used to electrolyse water to produce hydrogen which could be
stored for longer timescales for use in electricity generation or
other applications. Electrolysis was assessed in a sensitivity case
but it was not included in most of the analyses because it was not
economically attractive, as discussed in Section 4.7.

Table 2
Input data for alternative and base line technologies.

Parameter Units Pulverised coal Natural gas combined cycle

Without capture With capture Without capture With capture

Efficiency % (LHV basis) 56 49 45 35

Capital cost s/kWe 1400 2300 575 1100
CO2 production kg/MWh fuel 209 209 328 328
CO2 capture % 0 90 0 85
688 J. Davison / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 3 (2009) 683–692
Fig. 3. Electricity generation versus wind generation capacity.
Fig. 4. Impact of wind generation on fossil fuel plant load cycling.
The average monthly electricity demand, wind power genera-
tion (50 GW capacity) and total residual demand for the one year
analysed in this paper are shown in Fig. 2.
The fractions of the total electricity demand that would be
satisfied by the different generation technologies and the
quantities of surplus potential electricity are shown in Fig. 3 for
a range of wind energy capacities. Fig. 3 and the subsequent
analyses are based on 10 GW of inflexible generation capacity. It is
assumed that when surplus electricity is available because of high
wind availability the wind generation is curtailed, although in
practise some of the ‘inflexible’ generation may be curtailed
instead, particularly if wind generators obtain income from a fixed
feed-in tariff or from renewable certificates that are in addition to
the market value of electricity sales.
In a scenario with 50 GW of wind generation capacity and
10 GW of inflexible plants 35% of electricity would be generated by
wind, 22% by inflexible plants and 43% by flexible fossil fuel plants.
The ratio of installed capacity to percentage generation is higher
for wind generation than for inflexible generation because of the
relatively low average load factor of wind turbines, which is about
28% in this analysis. Installed wind capacities of 100% or more
of maximum demand as shown in Fig. 3 can be reasonably
considered, even when there is a significant amount of inflexible
generation, because there are few times when there is sufficient
wind to enable all of the turbines across the country to generate at
their maximum rated capacities. The amount of surplus potential
electricity that would have to be discarded in the 35% wind
scenario would be 2% of the total generation. This would increase
rapidly to 9% if the amount of wind energy used increased to 43%. If
the ‘inflexible’ plants were able to vary their outputs the amount of
surplus electricity could be significantly reduced, for example to 5%
even at 50% wind generation.
Although the amount of generation by the fossil fuel plants
decreases substantially as the amount of wind generation increases
the installed capacity of the fossil fuel power plants decreases by
much less, for example by 7% when wind generation increases from
zero to 35% of the total demand. This is because there are some
occasions when wind availability is close to zero in the UK during
times of high electricity demand, although this is based on the
current limited geographical distribution of wind turbines.
4.2. Power generation plant load factor and load cycling
A power generation system without variable renewable
generation consists of base load generation plants which operate
continuously and intermediate and peak load generation plants
which vary their outputs to satisfy the varying electricity demand.
In a system with a substantial amount of wind generation there is
little or no requirement for base load generation, as shown by Fig. 1
and all of the power plants have to be able to vary their load, to
avoid having to discard surplus power. This has major implications
for the operation of CCS plants.
Increasing the amount of wind generation from zero to 35% of
total generation reduces the load factor of the residual fossil fuel
plants from 58% to 34%. Using the proposed gasification process
with hydrogen storage the gasification plant can operate at base
load (85% load factor) and the only the combined cycle plant has to
operate at 34% load factor. If a plant with integrated CCS was used,
the entire plant would have to operate at 34% load factor.
As well as affecting the number of plants that have to vary their
output, adding wind power also affects the total amount of load
cycling of the residual plants. The total amount of load cycling can
be defined as the sum of the difference in power output of the
residual generation plants between each successive half-hourly
period over the year. The impact of increasing the amount of wind
generation on the total load cycling of the residual plants is shown
in Fig. 4. In the scenario in which 35% of total electricity is provided
by wind the amount of load cycling of fossil fuel plants is 27%
higher than in a scenario with no wind generation. This is a
significant increase but the main requirement for load cycling
continues to be the variation in consumer electricity demand,
rather than the variation in wind power generation. Further
increasing the amount of wind generation reduces the amount of
load cycling by the residual fossil fuel plants, because at high levels
of wind generation an increasing amount of the load variation is
accommodated by discarding potential wind generation rather
than by cycling fossil fuel generation plants.
Early combined cycle plants were generally not designed for
frequent cycling but recent designs have much improved capacity
for variable and low load operation (Balling and Hofman, 2007;
Ladwig et al., 2008). A hot start to full load can be achieved in
40 min (Balling and Hofman, 2007). A cold start is the most
stressful fatigue event for a combined cycle and the number of cold
starts over a 20-year design life may be 2000 (Modern Power
Systems, 2007), i.e. one every 3.7 days. Cold starts are up to 20
times more damaging for a combined cycle plant than a warm
start. Some combined cycle plants start-up approximately 300
times per year on a daily cycling routine (Balling and Hofman,
2007). Gas turbines could be used in simple cycle mode for rapid
response and low load factor duties if required.
It should be noted that the existing fleet of coal-fired plant in the
UK market was also designed for base load but, because of market
drivers, has modified their equipment and operating procedures in
recent years to become highly flexible. Similar changes may deliver
comparable flexibility for ‘old’ combined cycle plants.
4.3. Hydrogen-rich gas storage
The UK has in the past had a relatively small natural gas
storage capacity because it had access to indigenous gas
 J. Davison / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 3 (2009) 683–692 689

supplies. The current UK natural gas storage capacity is

equivalent to about 15 days of average consumption. As North
Sea gas supplies decline and the UK moves from being a gas
exporter to a gas importer the storage capacity is being
increased. Other European countries that import most their
natural gas usually have higher gas storage capacities to
maintain security of supply, e.g. about 90 days of consumption
in France and 77 days in Germany. In the 35% wind, 22%
inflexible generation scenario the maximum quantity of hydro-
gen that has to be stored is 680 ktonnes, which is equivalent to
about 80% more than the UK’s current volume of natural gas
storage. The volume of hydrogen storage that is required is
therefore equivalent to the volume of 27 days of current UK
natural gas consumption. The variation in the quantity of
hydrogen that is in storage during the year is shown in Fig. 5;
the minimum occurs in late February and the maximum occurs Fig. 6. CO2 emissions.
in late October.
The quantity of gas that would need to be stored in a scenario
with no wind power would be higher than in the wind scenario
because less seasonal storage is needed in the wind scenario
because overall average wind power generation is higher in winter
when power demand is higher. The maximum rate of gas input and
extraction from the storage reservoirs would be higher in the
scenario with wind power, so storage reservoirs that are capable of
fast response would be needed. The maximum rate of hydrogen
input to the storage reservoirs in a half hour period is 0.07% of the
storage capacity in the 35% wind scenario and the maximum rate of
extraction is 0.13%. This extraction rate is within the capabilities of
salt cavern natural gas storage reservoirs of 8%/day (equivalent to
0.17% per half hour) quoted by UK Energy Research Centre (2009).
New salt cavern storage reservoirs being built at Aldburgh in the
UK will be capable of injection and extraction rates of 8.1% and
Fig. 7. Costs of electricity generation.
10.8% per day (Scottish and Southern Energy, 2009). If maximum
extraction rate is a problem some natural gas could be used in the
power plants during the short term peaks in power demand,
although this would increase CO2 emissions. The maximum rate of of the emissions from the current UK electricity system. The
hydrogen consumption in a half-hour period is 2.9 times the rate of emissions are also substantially lower than those of systems with
production. 30% of the hydrogen that is produced during the year the alternative residual generation technologies.
passes through the storage reservoirs and the rest is fed directly to
the power plants. The average quantity of hydrogen in storage is 5% 4.5. Costs of electricity generation
of the annual consumption.
Most published costs of CO2 abatement are for base load
4.4. CO2 emissions power generation. However the non-base load generation (i.e.
above the minimum system demand) accounts for about 40% of
The CO2 emission of the hydrogen-CCS combined cycle total generation in the UK, so when looking at deep reductions in
technology is 16 g/kWh. This is compared to emissions of other emissions it is essential that this generation is also considered. It
technologies in Fig. 6. Fig. 6 also shows the emissions of overall is inevitable that the costs of intermediate and peak load
electricity systems using these technologies in combination with generation will be higher than for base load generation. Costs of
35% wind power and 22% inflexible power generation, assuming generation for the gasification-hydrogen-CCS technology and
these other technologies have zero emissions. alternative technologies (pulverised coal with and without CCS
The emissions of the electricity system incorporating coal and natural gas combined cycles with and without CCS) are
gasification hydrogen plants with CCS is 7 kg/MWh, which is 1.4% shown in Fig. 7. The costs of the CCS plants include the costs of
CO2 transport and storage. Costs are shown for the following
scenarios:

1. Base load operation.

2. Overall electricity system with no wind or other generation
capacity.
3. Residual generation in a system with no wind and 22% of
generation from inflexible base load capacity.
4. Residual generation in a system with 22% of generation from
wind and no other base load generation.
5. Residual generation with 22% of generation from wind and 35%
from inflexible base load generation.
6. Residual generation with 35% wind and 22% inflexible base load
Fig. 5. Quantity of hydrogen in storage. generation.
690 J. Davison / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 3 (2009) 683–692
It can be seen that for base load generation (scenario 1) the
pulverised coal CCS technology with post-combustion capture has
a lower cost than the gasification-hydrogen-CCS technology,
although it should be noted some of this cost difference is because
the hydrogen CCS technology captures a higher percentage CO2
(98.5% compared to 90%). In scenario 2 all of the costs are higher,
because they include intermediate and peak load as well as base
load generation, so average load factors are lower. In scenarios 3
and 4 with modest amounts of other low-CO2 generation the costs
are also higher because a greater proportion of the generation is
intermediate and peak load. The costs of the coal hydrogen
technology are similar to those of the coal post-combustion
capture technology in these scenarios, despite the higher level of
CO2 capture. In scenarios 5 and 6 with high amounts of other low-
CO2 generation the costs of pulverised coal plants with and
without CCS are substantially higher than those in the other
scenarios but the increase in costs for the hydrogen CCS technology
is modest, around 12% compared to scenarios 3 and 4, 16%
compared to scenario 2 and 26% compared to the base load
scenario 1. The hydrogen technology has substantially lower costs
than the coal post-combustion CCS technology in these scenarios.
The costs of the hydrogen technology are similar for the scenarios
with wind and other base load generation (scenario 4 versus 3 and
6 versus 5). This means that the ‘system cost’ for using wind
instead of conventional base load technologies is small, about s2/
MWh of wind generation. The ‘system costs’ for wind are
substantially higher for the other residual generation technologies,
s4–12/MWh. The variability of wind has little impact on the
overall cost for the hydrogen CCS technology because the increased
cost of combined cycle plant capacity required in the wind
scenarios is partly offset by a reduced requirement for hydrogen
storage. Natural gas combined cycle plants with post-combustion
capture have lower costs than the hydrogen plants in scenarios 1–4
but similar costs for scenarios 5 and 6. The relative costs of the gas
and coal plants are highly sensitive to fuel prices as discussed in
Section 4.7.
4.6. Costs of CO2 abatement
The cost of CO2 abatement is calculated by comparing a plant
with abatement and a baseline plant without abatement. The
baseline plant should be the type of plant that would be displaced
by the plant with abatement. The cost in s/tonne of CO2 abated is
the cost of generation (s/MWh) of the plant with abatement
minus the cost of the baseline plant without abatement, divided by
the emissions of the baseline plant without abatement (t/MWh)
minus the emissions of the plant with abatement. The choice of
baseline plant can have a large impact of the quantity of CO2 abated
and cost of abatement. If a coal-fired plant with high specific CO2
emissions is the baseline then the quantity of CO2 abated is high
but if a natural gas fired plant is the baseline the quantity abated is
lower, as shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8. CO2 abatement versus coal and gas baseline plants.
Fig. 9. Cost of CO2 abatement–coal baseline.
The costs of abatement compared to coal-fired baseline plants
without CCS are shown in Fig. 9. The abatement costs are shown in
terms of s per tonne of CO2 emissions avoided in a scenario with
22% generation by inflexible plants.
It can be seen that the costs of abatement are broadly similar for
coal gasification hydrogen combined cycle power plants and
natural gas combined cycle plants with post-combustion capture.
The costs of abatement for these two technologies are lower in
scenarios with more wind generation, because the cost of the
baseline plant increases more than the cost of the plant with CCS.
For the gasification hydrogen technology the load factor of the
gasification hydrogen plant remains constant and only the load
factor of the combined cycle power plant decreases when the
amount of wind generation increases. For the baseline coal plant
the load factor of the whole power plant decreases and the capital
cost of the baseline coal-fired power plant is greater than the cost
of a combined cycle plant used in the gasification hydrogen
technology.
The costs of abatement for the pulverised coal technology with
post-combustion capture are substantially higher than for the coal
hydrogen power technology because the whole plant is affected by
the reduced load factor for power generation. For the reference
scenario with 35% wind generation the cost of CO2 abatement for
the gasification hydrogen plant is only 38% of the cost for the coal
plant with post-combustion capture.
Costs of abatement compared to a natural gas combined cycle
baseline plant are shown in Fig. 10.
The costs of abatement compared to a natural gas base line
plant are higher than compared to a coal base line mainly because
the emissions of gas fired generation are lower than coal-fired
generation and hence a lower quantity of emissions is abated, as
shown in Fig. 8.
4.7. Cost sensitivities
The costs of abatement compared to a natural gas baseline plant
are highly sensitive to the natural gas price, as shown in Fig. 11
which is based on the 35% wind scenario. The costs of abatement
for the coal based plants decrease when the cost of natural gas
increases, because the cost of the baseline plant increases.
Fig. 10. Cost of CO2 abatement–natural gas baseline.
 J. Davison / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 3 (2009) 683–692
Table 3
Cost sensitivities.
Parameter Sensitivity
Coal price +50%
Natural gas cost +50%
H2 storage cost +50%
CO2 storage cost +50%
H2 plant capital cost +20%
Combined cycle capital cost +20%
Base line power plant capital cost +20%
H2 plant efficiency +5% points
Combined cycle plant efficiency +5% points
H2 plant operating availability +5% points
Annual capital charge factor +2% points
Percentage CO2 capture 85%
The effects of other significant parameters on the cost of
electricity and the costs of CO2 abatement for the hydrogen CCS
technology in the 35% wind scenario are shown in Table 3. The base
case values of the parameters are given in Table 2. The base case
cost of electricity is s102.6/MWh and the costs of abatement
versus gas and coal baseline plants are s104.6 and s30.2/tonne
CO2 respectively. For all except the last 4 parameters the
sensitivities between the parameter value and costs are linear.
Reducing the percentage CO2 capture to 85% by eliminating the
PSA unit decreases the cost of abatement for the coal baseline but
increases the cost for the natural gas baseline. The reduction in the
cost of electricity for the coal hydrogen plant compared to the
baseline plant is greater than the reduction in the quantity of CO2
abated, hence the cost of abatement decreases. A reduction in the
percentage of CO2 captured has a much greater impact on the
quantity of CO2 abated compared to a natural gas baseline than for
a coal baseline, as could be illustrated by varying the amount of
CO2 captured in Fig. 8. For the natural gas baseline the reduction in
the quantity of CO2 abated resulting from reducing the percentage
CO2 capture to 85% is greater than the reduction in the electricity
cost, hence the cost of abatement increases.
4.8. Use of surplus electricity
Surplus potential electricity that is available at times of high
wind energy availability can be used to produce hydrogen by
electrolysis. The hydrogen can be stored and used for electricity
generation at other times. This option was analysed but found to be
economically unattractive at the levels of wind energy generation
examined in this study, i.e. up to 45% of total generation. Even
when the surplus electricity used by the electrolysers is assumed
to have a zero value the cost of the hydrogen is greater than the
cost of production in coal gasification plants with CCS due to
the low operating load factor of the electrolysers. The load factor of
the electrolysers depends on the proportion of the total surplus
Fig. 11. Cost of CO2 abatement–natural gas baseline case, sensitivity to gas price.
691
Effect on cost of electricity (s/MWh) Effects on cost of CO2 abatement (s/tonne)
Coal base line Gas base line
+11.9 +5.4 +33.2
0 0 54.0
+3.0 +4.2 +8.5
+2.7 +3.7 +7.5
+7.9 +11.1 +22.2
+5.6 +7.8 +5.6
0 18.3 0
2.5 3.5 7.2
6.1 8.6 8.7
2.2 3.1 6.2
+10.5 +1.7 +18.8
5.4 2.1 +40.7
wind energy that is used for electrolysis. If all of the surplus
electricity is used, i.e. the installed capacity of the electrolysers is
equal to the maximum quantity of surplus electricity that is
available at any time during the year, the average load factor would
be 8% in a scenario with 45% wind generation. If the electrolyser
capacity was only 10% of the maximum surplus electricity the load
factor would be 25% but then only 30% of the surplus electricity
would be used. Even at this load factor the capital cost of the
electrolysers would have to be less than about s500/kW to enable
them to compete with hydrogen from gasification with CCS. This is
substantially less than the cost of $1500/kW which is reported by
González et al. (2003) to be realistic for the medium term.
As well as hydrogen, electrolysis plants produce oxygen which
could be used by coal gasification hydrogen plants, displacing
oxygen produced in electrically driven air separation units.
However, oxygen would only be produced by electrolysis during
times of surplus electricity, when the price of electricity would be
very low or even negative and hence the saving from reduced
electricity consumption by the air separation units would be close
to zero. Oxygen from electrolysis could be stored for later use,
either in surface vessels or possibly underground. The costs and
safety of large scale oxygen storage would have to be investigated.
The conclusion of this assessment is that production of
hydrogen by electrolysis during times of surplus electricity is
economically uncompetitive with coal gasification with CCS in the
range of scenarios examined in this paper, in which up to 45% of
total generation is provided by wind energy.
5. Conclusions
A process consisting of coal gasification, hydrogen production,
pre-combustion capture of CO2, underground buffer storage of
hydrogen and combined cycle power generation has been shown
to have substantial advantages over other CCS processes in future
electricity systems which include large amounts of variable wind
power generation. This process would avoid the need to vary the
operating load of the gasification and CO2 capture and storage
equipment, resulting in significant operational and economic
benefits. The percentage CO2 capture in such hydrogen plants
could be 98–99%.
An electricity system including wind energy and hydrogen
plants with CCS and separate combined cycle plants could have
CO2 emissions that are 98–99% lower than those of the current UK
system.
In a scenario in which 35% of electricity is generated from wind,
the cost of CO2 abatement using the gasification-based CCS process
with hydrogen storage would be less than 40% of the cost of using
conventional coal-fired power plants with integrated CCS.
692 J. Davison / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 3 (2009) 683–692
Natural gas fired power plants with post-combustion capture of
CO2 could be economically competitive with the coal gasification-
based process in a high wind scenario if the cost of gas was less
than about s6/GJ but the overall percentage reduction in national
CO2 emissions would be about 95%, i.e. less than that for the coal
gasification-based process. In addition, there are uncertainties
regarding the ability to operate post-combustion CO2 capture,
transport and storage in a sufficiently flexible manner.
In situations where there are concerns regarding the security or
costs of natural gas supplies the proposed gasification hydrogen
technology in combination with renewable energy would make it
possible to eliminate natural gas from the power generation
system, while reducing CO2 emissions from electricity generation
to very low levels.
The proposed CCS process comprises commercially available
technologies with few development risks but further work is
required to assess the potential global capacity for geological
storage of hydrogen.
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