How Will the Capital Cost Influence the Integration of CCS Coal Plants into the Chinese Low-carbon Optimal Power Expansion Plan by 2050?

Abstract

As the worldwide largest electricity producer and national highest CO₂ emitting sector, the Chinese power sector is facing considerable challenges to meet the current tremendous and future growing electricity need, while addressing the emission issues. As the primary CO₂ release source in the power system, coal-fired power dominates the capacity mix with 59% of the total in 2019. Therefore, it is urgent for the coal power industry to speed up reducing carbon emission. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a promising technology for coal power plants to mitigate CO₂ release. However, considerable uncertainty exists in its capital cost because of the technical immaturity. This work models China’s optimal power expansion plan by 2050 under the 2℃ emission target with a dynamic high spatial-temporal model and investigates the capital-cost impacts on power planning. The result shows that: (1) CCS need to be applied, and its capital cost must be lowered to maintain coal-fired power capacity, otherwise, its capacity ratio will have to be reduced to 9.48% of the national total by 2050 (1700 $/kW scenario) to meet the 2℃ emission target; (2) renewables would dominate the power generation by 52.6%~62.8%, while their variability problem must be handled with increasing power transmission, flexible operation of ramp generators, pumped-hydro storage and power curtailment.