Modeling and simulation of the start-up process of coal fired power plants with post-combustion CO2 capture

Abstract

A detailed model of a post-combustion CO₂ capture plant (pcc-plant) is developed in the Modelica ® language which allows the simulation of start-up and shutdown processes. The model of the pcc-plant is coupled to a simplified model of a coal fired power plant to investigate the coupled process. To guarantee a stable and automatic operation, a sequential control for start-up and shutdown procedures is implemented in both plants. Two case studies, focussing on the pcc-plant, are subsequently performed in this contribution. In the first case study, the influence of different parameters and input variables on the start-up time is investigated in order to analyze the start-up process of the pcc-plant. The varied variables are the steam flow rate to the reboiler, the solvent flow rate and the total amount of solvent in the pcc-plant. In the second case study two different start-up control structures for the carbon capture plant are proposed and their performances are presented and compared.