Low-Carbon Trinary Power Plants

At present, improving environmental safety at thermal power plants is one of the key areas of energy development. In world practice, technologies for cleaning exhaust gases from nitrogen oxides, sulfur and ash are actively used. However, carbon dioxide captures technologies have not yet found wide application due to a significant decrease in the efficiency of electricity production. This paper presents the results of the development and study of process flow charts of binary and trinary power plants with minimal emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere. The research revealed that the transition from monoethanolamine cleaning of exhaust gases to a methane steam reforming plant provides an increase in the net efficiency of a trinary power plant by 1.25% (for a combined-cycle plant by 1.16%) and a reduction in specific carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere by 2.3 times. The high efficiency of the power unit with an integrated steam methane reforming unit compared to monoethanolamine exhaust gas cleaning is due to a reduction in electricity costs for carbon dioxide capture by 8.2 MW.