Flexible operation and economic incentives to reduce the cost of CO₂ capture

Flexible operation is important for processing plants, where turning down or increasing production can be used to take advantage of changes in sales price and demand. Power plants equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) assisted can take advantage of this through flexible operation. This paper uses real electricity price data and multi-objective optimisation (MOO) to determine the trade-offs between profitability and plant carbon capture rate using a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) as the base power plant. The benefits of flexible operation as applied to CCS are also examined, along with the economic incentives required to achieve a zero cost of CO₂ reduction. The impact of different levels of carbon price and government capital co-investment on CCS plant profitability are assessed.