Paths to Affordable Deployment of CCUS for a Power Plant Fleet in China

The deployment of carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) at power plants is currently considered to be too expensive in many parts of the world. In this paper, we show a pathway exists for affordable deployment of CO₂ capture in the Chinese power sector scaling to greater than 100 MM tons per year by 2030. Using a granular analysis of the existing power plant fleet at a large power company accounting for about 10% of total nameplate generation capacity in China, we show that local variations in the cost of CO₂ capture within a power plant fleet result in a discount of up to 30%, relative to the mean values estimated by generalized analyses of reference cases. This paper describes efforts at NICE to identify and demonstrate the affordable paths to CO₂ emissions reductions at a scale of 100 MM tons/year or greater within China Energy Group (CE) operations by 2030. Given that the power sector in China accounts for about 50% of its national CO₂ emissions and about 15% of global anthropogenic CO₂, progress in CCUS at CE can result in meaningful CO₂ emissions reductions while also providing a roadmap for global scale impact.

This paper will cover a techno-economics study of carbon capture across a major portion of the CE coal power generation fleet. Current CE assets include over 150 GW of coal-fired power generation distributed across China. The paper will provide a clearer picture of cost of electricity (COE) and capture costs and avoided costs when the fleet is retrofitted with carbon capture technology. This study will be used to guide efforts to meaningfully and affordably reduce carbon intensity across the entire system. Initial CCUS deployment pathways, using commercially available technology, will be shown. R&D targets that can enable meaningful improvements in affordability will also be presented.