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Abstract: Reduction of the emissions of greenhouses gases, increasing the share of renewable energy sources (RES) in the energy balance, increasing electricity production from renewable energy sources and decreasing energy dependency represent the main goals of all current strategies in Europe. Biomass co-firing in large coal-based thermal power plants provides a considerable opportunity to increase the share of RES in the primary energy balance and the share of electricity from RES in gross electricity consumption in a country. Biomass-coal co-firing means reducing CO2 and SO2, emissions and it may also reduce NO x emissions, and also represents a near-term, low-risk, low-cost and sustainable energy development. Biomass-coal co-firing is the most effective measure to reduce CO2 emissions, because it substitutes coal, which has the most intensive CO2 emissions per kWh electricity production, by biomass, with a zero net emission of CO2. Biomass co-firing experience worldwide are reviewed in this paper. Biomass co-firing has been successfully demonstrated in over 150 installations worldwide for most combinations of fuels and boiler types in the range of 50–700MWe, although a number of very small plants have also been involved. More than a hundred of these have been in Europe. A key indicator for the assessment of biomass co-firing is intrduced and used to evaluate all available biomass co-firing technologies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Developed life cycle assessment model for biomass co-firing power plants with CCS. • Given detailed process-level input-output table based on mass and energy balances. • Co-firing of 25% biomass with coal can achieve near-zero emissions in CCS plants. • Environmental burden shifts significantly as the co-firing ratio. • Uncertainty analysis was carried out for the environmental burden shift. As a carbon-neutral renewable energy source, biomass co-firing with coal contributes to reducing the carbon intensity of pulverized coal power plants with CO 2 capture and storage; thus, this process significantly reduces the greenhouse gas emissions of the power industry. However, various types of environmental impacts caused by co-firing have hindered the large-scale deployment of this technology. In this study, ten life cycle assessment models were developed based on the Integrated Environmental Control Model and GaBi software to quantify the performance parameters of different power plants and the influence of the co-firing ratio on various environmental impact categories. The system boundaries included raw material acquisition, raw material transport, energy conversion of power plants, CCS and brine treatment. The results indicated that a pulverized biomass/coal co-firing power plant with CCS can achieve near-zero emissions at a co-firing ratio of 25% and negative emissions of 877 kg CO 2 -e/MWh from a life-cycle perspective when coal is totally replaced. Co-firing biomass and coal in power plants has a passive impact on seven environmental categories, such as the eutrophication potential and toxicity potential, rather than on the global warming potential, abiotic resource depletion potential and acidification potential. The major causes of environmental burden shifting are energy penalties and indirect emissions from high-energy-consumption processes, especially emissions of N 2 O, NH 3 and ethylene oxide released during biomass extraction and solvent preparation. The conclusions and recommendations presented in this paper may have implications for deep decarbonization in other industrial sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]