A Technoeconomic Comparison of IGCC Power Plants With Cold Gas Cleanup and Hot Gas Cleanup Units Using Indian Coals

Bulk of CO2 emission comes from thermal power generation, which constitutes about 63% of total installed capacity of around 101.6 GWe. The policy makers and power utilities are increasingly favoring the introduction of clean coal technologies, which release less pollutants viz. CO2, NOx and SOx than the conventional thermal plants and have potential to operate at higher efficiencies above 42–44%. Among the clean coal technologies, Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) is being considered the most promising because of higher thermal efficiencies and improved environmental performance. IGCC has the added advantage of removing sulphur pollutants in bed using sorbent as against expensive external post combustion flue gas desulphurisation systems. It is proposed to set up 100MWe-demonstration plant for proving the emission standards and performance prior to commercialization. This plant is based on Frame 6 FA gas turbine designed for low Btu gas firing. The Paper presents the technical parameters and compares the overall project cost of 100MWe IGCC plant for both Cold gas cleanup unit (CGCU) and Hot gas cleanup unit (HGCU), which comprises of Gasification Island, power block, and balance of plant. Being first of kind the project cost is higher and the project cost is likely to get reduced for utility scale of 425 MW IGCC plants in future.