Opportunities for CO₂ Capture and Storage in Iranian Electricity Generation

CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) systems are technologies that can be used to reduce CO₂ emissions by different industries where combustion is part of the process. A major problem of CCS system utilization in electricity generation industry is their high efficiency penalty in power plants. For different types of power plants fueled by oil, natural gas and coal, there are three main techniques that can be applied: • CO₂ capture after combustion (post-combustion); • CO₂ capture after concentration of flue gas by using pure oxygen in boilers and furnaces (oxy-fuel power plant); • CO₂ capture before combustion (pre-combustion). More than 90% of electricity generation in Iran is based on fossil fuel power plants. Worldwide, electricity generation is responsible for 54% of GHG emissions. Thus, it is vital to reduce CO₂ emission in fossil fuel-fired power plants. In this paper, it is shown that, by applying CO₂ capture systems in power generation industry, very low CO₂ emission intensity is possible but the energy and economic penalties are substantial. The analyses showed that for different technologies efficiency penalty could be as high as 25% and cost of electricity might increase by more than 65%. Two scenarios for Iranian electricity generation sector were investigated in this paper: installing CCS in the existing power plants with current technologies and replacing existing power plants by natural gas combined cycle plants equipped with CO₂ capture system. The results revealed that the GHG intensity can be reduced from 610 to 79 gCO₂eq/kWh in the first scenario and to 54 gCO₂eq/kWh in the second scenario.