Life Cycle Assessment of Advanced Zero Emission Combined Cycle Power Plants

This study investigated different concepts for natural-gas-fired power plants with the CO2 capture, and compared them based on the net plant efficiency and emission of CO2. The cycles were based on a six oxy-fuel, one post-combustion and two pre-combustion capture concept. This paper presented the results of an environmental evaluation performed by the application of the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) method using SimaPro model to compare an Advanced Zero Emission Power Plant (AZEP) concept with a conventional combined cycle power plant from 50MW to 400MW. The LCA study was built upon the calculation and the comparison of several impacts (emissions of CO2, CO, NOX, and SOX, consumption of water and primary energy) and several impact categories (climate change, acid rain, ozone depletion and Ecotoxicity). The work was developed entirely using the Eco-indicator99 of the LCA method. The results showed that for all studied impacts, the AZEP power plants have fewer impacts. However, compared to the conventional combined cycle power plants, the total primary energy consumption in the AZEP concept is bigger due to the lower electric efficiency.