The European Union has placed limits on CO2 emissions by Member States as part of its Emission Trading Scheme. This impacts fossil fuel power plants to a significant degree as their emissions are governed by the number of emission allowances they receive from the Member State allocation. Excess CO2 emissions have to be covered by purchasing extra allowances, which is in effect a penalty. In contrast, undershooting emission limits enables the emitter to sell CO2 allowances.
A Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) is shown to reduce CO2 emissions from both Coal Fired Power Plant (CFPP) and Gas Turbine Power Plant (GTPP).
In the case of CFPP, the MCFC is placed in the flue gas stream of the coal fired boiler. In the case of GTPP, the MCFC is placed in the flue gas stream of the gas turbine. The model of the MCFC is given and described. Both CFPP and GTPP were analyzed for several different scenarios with different levels of complexity.
The main advantages of these solutions are: higher total electricity generated by a hybrid system, reduced CO2 emissions and. The results obtained for CFPP show that use of an MCFC could reduce CO2 emissions by 56%, which gives a relative CO2 emission rate of 288 kgCO2/MWh with higher power generation efficiency. The results obtained for GTPP show that use of an MCFC could reduce CO2 emissions by 73%, which gives a relative CO2 emission rate of 135kgCO2/MWh with power generation efficiency remained the same.