Optimization of energy usage for fleet-wide power generating system under carbon mitigation options

This article presents a fleet-wide model for energy planning that can be used to determine the optimal structure necessary to meet a given CO₂ reduction target while maintaining or enhancing power to the grid. The model incorporates power generation as well as CO₂ emissions from a fleet of generating stations (hydroelectric, fossil fuel, nuclear, and wind). The model is formulated as a mixed integer program and is used to optimize an existing fleet as well as recommend new additional generating stations, carbon capture and storage, and retrofit actions to meet a CO₂ reduction target and electricity demand at a minimum overall cost. The model was applied to the energy supply system operated by Ontario power generation (OPG) for the province of Ontario, Canada. In 2002, OPG operated 79 electricity generating stations; 5 are fueled with coal (with a total of 23 boilers), 1 by natural gas (4 boilers), 3 nuclear, 69 hydroelectric and 1 wind turbine generating a total of 115.8 TWh. No CO₂ capture process existed at any OPG power plant; about 36.7 million tonnes of CO₂ was emitted in 2002, mainly from fossil fuel power plants. Four electricity demand scenarios were considered over a span of 10 years and for each case the size of new power generation capacity with and without capture was obtained. Six supplemental electricity generating technologies have been allowed for: subcritical pulverized coal-fired (PC), PC with carbon capture (PC+CCS), integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), IGCC with carbon capture (IGCC+CCS), natural gas combined cycle (NGCC), and NGCC with carbon capture (NGCC+CCS). The optimization results showed that fuel balancing alone can contribute to the reduction of CO₂ emissions by only 3% and a slight, 1.6%, reduction in the cost of electricity compared to a calculated base case. It was found that a 20% CO₂ reduction at current electricity demand could be achieved by implementing fuel balancing and switching 8 out of 23 coal-fired boilers to natural gas. However, as demand increases, more coal-fired boilers needed to be switched to natural gas as well as the building of new NGCC and NGCC+CCS for replacing the aging coal-fired power plants. To achieve a 40% CO₂ reduction at 1.0% demand growth rate, four new plants (2 NGCC, 2 NGCC+CCS) as well as carbon capture processes needed to be built. If greater than 60% CO₂ reductions are required, NGCC, NGCC+CCS, and IGCC+CCS power plants needed to be put online in addition to carbon capture proce