Integrated assessment of CCS in the German power plant sector with special emphasis on the competition with renewable energy technologies

Abstract

The study presents the results of an integrated assessment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the power plant sector in Germany, with special emphasis on the competition with renewable energy technologies. Assessment dimensions comprise technical, economic and environmental aspects, long-term scenario analysis, the role of stakeholders and public acceptance and regulatory issues. The results lead to the overall conclusion that there might not necessarily be a need to focus additionally on CCS in the power plant sector. Even in case of ambitious climate protection targets, current energy policy priorities (expansion of renewable energies and combined heat and power plants as well as enhanced energy productivity) result in a limited demand for CCS. In case that the large energy saving potential aimed for can only partly be implemented, the rising gap in CO 2 reduction could only be closed by setting up a CCS-maximum strategy. In this case, up to 22 per cent (41 GW) of the totally installed load in 2050 could be based on CCS. Assuming a more realistic scenario variant applying CCS to only 20 GW or lower would not be sufficient to reach the envisaged climate targets in the electricity sector. Furthermore, the growing public opposition against CO 2 storage projects appears as a key barrier, supplemented by major uncertainties concerning the estimation of storage potentials, the long-term cost development as well as the environmental burdens which abound when applying a life-cycle approach.However, recently, alternative applications are being increasingly considered -that is the capture of CO 2 at industrial point sources and biomass based energy production (electricity, heat and fuels) where assessment studies for exploring the potentials, limits and requirements for commercial use are missing so far. Globally, CCS at power plants might be an important climate protection technology: coal-consuming countries such as China and India are increasingly moving centre stage into the debate. Here, similar investigations on the development and the integration of both, CCS and renewable energies, into the individual energy system structures of such countries would be reasonable.

The impact of carbon capture and storage on a decarbonized German power market

“…This corresponds to other studies which do not see a business case for CCS power plants under the current framework conditions in Germany (cf. Viebahn et al 2012). A crucial point is the extension of renewable energies.…”

Flexible options to provide energy for capturing carbon dioxide in coal-fired power plants under the Clean Development Mechanism

“…High-energy consumption is an important factor that leads to the high cost of CCS projects (Arranz 2016;IPCC 2005). In general, the energy cost accounts for approximately 8-27% of the total cost of CO 2 capture (Broek et al 2009;Company and McKinsey 2008;Viebahn et al 2012;ZEP 2011). The purpose of an enterprise is to make a profit.…”

Long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies for achieving the 1.5 °C target – insights from a comparison of German bottom-up energy scenarios

“…It is generally assumed that for economic reasons as well as for a lack of public acceptance [55], coal or natural gas power plants using CCS will not play a significant role in Germany in the future [56]. Indeed, none of the analyzed scenarios relies on CCS technology to (heating) 503 593 502 633 578 605 706 691 583 Biofuels 108 373 107 90 200 442 z 116 109 260 Environmental heat 41 164 104 142 180 240 221 254 445 Solar thermal 28 162 136 134 124 246 149 131 351 TOTAL 680 1292 849 999 1082 1533 1192 1185 1639 y The sustainable and economic potential of the direct use of renewables in the end-use sectors is considered to be very small by the authors of the THGND scenario and they therefore do not consider these energy sources in their quantitative modelling.…”