Print Email Facebook Twitter Advances in Model-Based Design of Flexible and Prompt Energy Systems -- The CO2 Capture Plant at the Buggenum IGCC Power Station as a Test Case Title Advances in Model-Based Design of Flexible and Prompt Energy Systems -- The CO2 Capture Plant at the Buggenum IGCC Power Station as a Test Case Author Trapp, C. Contributor Colonna, P. (promotor) Faculty Aerospace Engineering Department Aerodynamics, Wind Energy, Flight Performance and Propulsion Date 2014-06-23 Abstract Pre-combustion CO2 capture applied to integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants is a promising technical solution to reduce CO2 emissions due to fossil-fuelled electricity generation in order to meet environmental targets in a carbon-constrained future. The pre-combustion capture process allows to effectively remove CO2 from synthetic gas prior its combustion at high partial pressures. In addition, the net energy efficiency of decarbonised IGCC plants is estimated to be higher than that of conventional pulverized coal steam power plants integrating carbon capture. However, the removal of CO2 leads to a high efficiency penalty for the thermal power plant and an increase in system complexity. Moreover, the integration of carbon capture into the very complex gasification process and combined cycle power plant leads to technical problems as far as dynamic operation is concerned. Transient performance of future IGCC power plants becomes extremely relevant in order to balance the rapidly growing share of electricity converted from inherently intermittent renewable sources, such as wind and solar energy. The work documented in this thesis was part of a larger research project involving the utility company Vattenfall, the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) and the Delft University of Technology aimed at the development of pre-combustion CO2 capture technology to be applied in a future commercial-scale IGCC power plant. A unique, fully instrumented CO2 capture pilot plant was realized at the Buggenum IGCC power station in the Netherlands in order to demonstrate the technology, to investigate its performance and to generate data for model validation. The most relevant research objectives of this thesis are to improve and develop general tools and methodologies which i) facilitate detailed steady-state performance analysis and sophisticated optimization of process design and operating conditions and ii) enable studies on process dynamics already during the early design phase in order to support the choice of equipment and control strategies aiming at the improvement of transient performance. The tools and methods are developed for the case-specific analysis of the pre-combustion CO2 capture plant at the Buggenum IGCC power station. With respect to generalization, it is worth to highlight that the adopted system engineering techniques and tools are applicable to the design of a larger class of chemical and energy conversion systems with minor changes. Subject pre-combustion CO2 captureIGCC power plantsprocess design optimizationdynamic performance To reference this document use: https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:27899eb2-f29a-4a83-a229-8fbeec6a2b3c Embargo date 2014-06-16 ISBN 9789462592223 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type doctoral thesis Rights (c) 2014 Trapp, C. /islandora/object/uuid:27899eb2-f29a-4a83-a229-8fbeec6a2b3c/datastream/OBJ/view