Economics of retrofitting power plants for coal-derived medium-Btu gas. Final report

Technical Report · Mon Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1979

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5746062· OSTI ID:5746062

Capital and operating cost estimates have been prepared for over-the-fence retrofitting of existing 500 MWe power plants to burn medium-Btu gas derived from developmental-stage, second-generation, oxygen-blown coal gasification processes. The economics of the retrofit installations, including the complete gasification system costs, have been compared to those of a reference power plant defined as a new, gas-roots, conventional coal-fired boiler facility equipped with flue gas desulfurization. The two types of power plants selected for retrofit are representative of relatively new (1) natural-gas-fired boiler plants and (2) oil-fired combined-cycle units. The reference power plant contains two 500 MWe coal-fired units typical of current new installations. The two oxygen-blown coal gasification systems evaluated for each retrofit were the Texaco process and the Combustion Engineering process. Neither of these gasification processes has been demonstrated at the commercial scale used in this study. Each coal gasification system was treated as a completely separate, self-contained facility supplying medium-Btu fuel gas to an adjacent existing power plant. With coal priced at $1 per million Btu, busbar power costs ranged from 37.6 to 42.3 mills per kilowatt-hour for the retrofit plants and were 38.5 mills per kilowatt-hour for the reference coal-fired boiler plant. It is concluded that further study of these retrofit options is warranted. Actual implementation of any of the retrofit designs described in this study must await commercial demonstration of the particular coal gasification process.

• Research Organization: Bechtel National, Inc., San Francisco, CA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5746062
• Report Number(s): EPRI-AF-1182
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
015000 -- Coal
Lignite
& Peat-- Economic
Industrial
& Business Aspects
20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
200108* -- Fossil-Fueled Power Plants-- Fuels-- (1980-)
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
294001 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Coal
CE ENTRAINED FUEL PROCESS
COAL GASIFICATION
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
ECONOMICS
ENGINEERING
FLUIDS
FOSSIL-FUEL POWER PLANTS
FUEL GAS
FUEL SUBSTITUTION
FUELS
GAS FUELS
GASES
GASIFICATION
INTERMEDIATE BTU GAS
POWER PLANTS
RETROFITTING
TEXACO GASIFICATION PROCESS
THERMAL POWER PLANTS
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES