Process modelling and techno-economic analysis of a 550MWe chemical looping power plant with victorian brown coal

•First-ever techno-economics of chemical looping combustion (CL) using Victorian brown coal.•Performance and economic parameters of the CL and conventional supercritical plants compared.•Results compared to DOE's 550 MWe PC power plant and Babcock & Wilcox’ 550 MWe CL plant.•Victorian brown coal -based CL plant resulted 31% net efficiency with 97% CO2 capture.•Conventional supercritical pulverized power showed 37.8% net efficiency.•Levelised cost of electricity of CL plant with VBC was calculated to be 143 $/MWh.•A VBCCL plant meets DOE's goal of 90% CO2 capture and < 35% increase in electricity cost. This study compares the process and economic performance of a 550 MWe chemical looping combustion (CLC) based power plant and a pulverized coal-fired power plant (CFPP), both fuelled by Victorian brown coal. Process simulation was conducted using Aspen Plus® to quantify mass and energy balances and performance indicators. Performance and economic parameters of the simulated CLC plant and conventional supercritical CFPP without CO2 capture were also compared to DOE/NETL's 550 MWe base power plant (case 12A) and Babcock & Wilcock's 550 MWe coal-direct chemical looping (CDCL) power plant. CLC plant with VBC provided 32.11% net efficiency (based on HHV) with 93% CO2 capture efficiency while the conventional CFPP showed 37.78%. Deep integration of utility heat from multistage CO2 compression unit restricted the energy penalty of CLC to 15% compared to conventional CFPP with Victorian brown coal. Levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of chemical looping combustion-based plant was calculated to be 146 $/MWh, which is 28.08% higher than the conventional CFPP with VBC. Cost of CO2 avoided for CLC plant was calculated to be 45.25 $/ton of CO2. This study showed that a 550 MWe commercial-scale CLC power plant with VBC can achieve DOE's goal of 90% CO2 capture at a less than 35% increase in the levelised cost of electricity.