Flexible operation of coal-fired power plant integrated with post-combustion CO₂ capture

For environmental protection, solvent-based post-combustion carbon capture (PCC) process has been applied to the coal-fired power plant as an end-of-pipe approach. Power plant needs to provide steam for PCC process and this will significantly influence the net power output. In this regard, this paper aims to: 1) provide an integrated model of small-scale PCC process with small-scale coal-fired power plant; 2) propose feed-back control structures for the integrated system and 3) develop a feed-forward controller to manipulate the steam draw-off flowrate in order to satisfy the rapid response to grid demand. Case studies were presented to investigate the system performance in the face of setpoints tracking and response to load change. The simulations were carried out in gCCS toolkit. Results demonstrate that the feed-forward controller can satisfactorily lower the time needed for power output target tracking.