Advanced air separation for coal gasification-combined-cycle power plants: Final report

Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and General Electric Company (GE) conducted a study to determine the benefits associated with extending the integration of integrated coal gasification-combined cycle (IGCC) systems to include the air separation plant which supplies oxygen to the gasifiers. This is achieved by extracting air from the gas turbine air compressors to feed the oxygen plant and returning waste nitrogen to the gas turbine. The ''Radiant Plus Convective Design'' (59/sup 0/F ambient temperature case) defined in EPRI report AP-3486 was selected as a base case into which the oxygen plant-gas turbine integration was incorporated and against which it was compared. General Electric Company's participation in evaluating gas turbine and power block performance ensured consistency between EPRI report AP-3486 and this study. Extending the IGCC integration to include an integrated oxygen plant-gas turbine results in a rare combination of benefits - higher efficiency and lower capital costs. Oxygen plant capital costs are over 20% less and the power requirement is reduced significantly. For the IGCC system, the net power output is higher for the same coal feed rate; this results in an overall improvement in heat rate of about 2% coupled with a reduction in capital costs of 2 tomore » 3%. 6 refs., 11 figs., 7 tabs.« less