Improving the Economic Viability of IGCC Power Plants Using Syngas Storage and Fuel-Switching

and opinions of the authors do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Improving the Economic Viability of IGCC Power Plants Using Syngas Storage and Fuel-Switching Integrated gasification / combined cycle (IGCC) technology offers a technically attractive path toward much cleaner coal-fired power plants. IGCC plants as currently configured are not cost-competitive, however, with conventional pulverized-coal (PC) technology under current environmental standards (Newcomer and Apt 2007; Javetski 2006; Kreutz et al. 2005). One of the problems with IGCC technology is the mismatch in the operational characteristics of the coal gasification unit and the power plant unit. Coal gasification facilities are expensive and cumbersome to shut down and restart, but gas-fired generation units are easily cycled on and off in response to fluctuations in electricity demand. There are now eight IGCC facilities operating worldwide, producing about 1.7 GW of electricity from coal or petcoke feedstock, and in all of these facilities the syngas is piped directly from the gasification unit to the generation unit. This design requires the coal gasification unit to be the same size as the combined cycle power plant unit. Neither unit can operate without the other, so the operational constraints of each uni