Abstract
Oxy-combustion coal based power plants are considered one of the cost effective ways to produce CO2 emission free electricity. Recovery of compression heat and the latent heat from the flue gases can further improve the efficiency of such power plants. Power plants that employ a boiler operating at a pressure higher than ambient pressure avoid air leakage into the boiler and also recover more of the latent heat available in the flue gases. Such power plants require compression of the oxygen stream before the combustor, an entirely new boiler house design and modifications to the downstream flue gas processing systems. Selection of an operating pressure that is energy optimal is the key to design of such systems. Besides the operating pressure, the oxygen purity and the downstream separation parameters have a considerable impact on the overall performance of such power plants. In this paper, the impact of operating pressure, oxygen purity and downstream purification parameters on the performance of oxycombustion coal based power plants are studied.