Impact of coal cleaning on the cost of new coal-fired power generation. Final report. [Comparison of 7 hypothetical power generation cases]

Seven hypothetical power-generation cases were studied to estimate the cost effect in each case of coal cleaning. Three levels of coal preparation - no cleaning, partial cleaning, and intensive cleaning - were used to perform the analysis. Two-unit, 1000-MW power plants operating at 70% average load factor were assumed. These power plants were designed to comply with the proposed NSPS for SO/sub 2/ emissions (85% removal/24-hour averaging) under the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments. Diverse coals and plant locations were selected. The estimated capital costs of the coal cleaning plants were consistently less than 5% of the capital costs estimated for the corresponding power-plants. In 6 of the 7 study cases, the utilization of coal cleaning reduced overall capital costs, and in 5 cases the busbar-cost savings introduced by the use of cleaned coal more than offset the incremental cost of coal cleaning. In terms of 30-year levelized costs, the use of cleaned coal was estimated to be responsible for net busbar-cost savings of up to 2 mills/net kWh in the 5 cases where coal cleaning appeared cost effective. These results are considered conservative, since certain economic benefits of using cleaned coal (e.g., improved power plant availability and operability) were not included in the cost estimates due to lack of sufficient data.