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Ambitions to produce electricity at low, zero, or negative carbon emissions are shifting the priorities and appreciation for new types of power generating technologies. Maintaining the balance between security of energy supply, carbon reduction, and electricity system cost during the transition of the electricity system is challenging. Few technology valuation tools consider the presence and interdependency of these three aspects, and nor do they appreciate the difference between firm and intermittent power generation. In this contribution, we present the results of a thought experiment and mathematical model wherein we conduct a systems analyses on the effects of gas-fired power plants equipped with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology in comparison with onshore wind power plants as main decarbonisation technologies. We find that while wind capacity integration is in its early stages of deployment an economic decarbonisation strategy, it ultimately results in an infrastructurally inefficient system with a required ratio of installed capacity to peak demand of nearly 2.. Due to the intermittent nature of wind power generation, its deployment requires a significant amount of reserve capacity in the form of firm capacity. While the integration of CCS-equipped capacity increases total system cost significantly, this strategy is able to achieve truly low-carbon power generation at 0.04 t CO2 /MWh. Via a simple example, this work elucidates how the changing system requirements necessitate a paradigm shift in the value perception of power generation technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biomass-based power generation combined with CO 2 capture and storage (Biopower CCS) currently represents one of the few practical and economic means of removing large quantities of CO 2 from the atmosphere, and the only approach that involves the generation of electricity at the same time. We present the results of the Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to Power with CO 2 capture (TESBiC) project, that entailed desk-based review and analysis, process engineering, optimisation as well as primary data collection from some of the leading pilot demonstration plants. From the perspective of being able to deploy Biopower CCS by 2050, twenty-eight Biopower CCS technology combinations involving combustion or gasification of biomass (either dedicated or co-fired with coal) together with pre-, oxy- or post-combustion CO 2 capture were identified and assessed. In addition to the capital and operating costs, techno-economic characteristics such as electrical efficiencies (LHV% basis), Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE), costs of CO 2 captured and CO 2 avoided were modelled over time assuming technology improvements from today to 2050. Many of the Biopower CCS technologies gave relatively similar techno-economic results when analysed at the same scale, with the plant scale (MW e ) observed to be the principal driver of CAPEX (£/MW e ) and the cofiring % (i.e. the weighted feedstock cost) a key driver of LCOE. The data collected during the TESBiC project also highlighted the lack of financial incentives for generation of electricity with negative CO 2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]