Techno-economic Analysis of NGCC Power Plant with Monoethanolamine-based CO2 Capture Process: Exploring Operational Independent Integration Alternatives

Power plants are currently a major contributor to global CO₂ emissions. Although renewable energy-based power generation is growing steadily, it is predicted that the role of natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants will continue to play a significant role in electricity production in the future. The use of post-combustion carbon capture technologies to reduce CO₂ emissions from these power plants is a promising option. Among various carbon capture options, monoethanolamine solvent based CO₂ capture (MEAC) is the most mature and widely used post-combustion technology. In this process, an aqueous solution of monoethanolamine is used to absorb CO₂ from flue gas chemically. This research work investigates three different MEAC integrated NGCC power plant configurations by using auxiliary combustors, exhaust gas reuse (EGRu) and exhaust gas recirculation (EGRc) techniques in different combinations. The use of auxiliary combustors with EGRu and EGRc techniques not only allows the overall plant to operate independently but also improves the CO₂ capture performance. A techno-economic analysis is conducted to analyze and compare these configurations to an NGCC power plant without CO₂ capture. The results demonstrate that the configuration with EGRu incurs the lowest energy efficiency penalty of 11.5 % among the MEAC integrated power plant configurations. In contrast, the novel configuration incorporating both EGRu and EGRc achieves the lowest levelized cost of electricity of 71.44 US$/MWhe and the lowest levelized cost of CO₂ capture of 41.51 US$/tonCO2. The research in overall provides attractive options for integrating the NGCC power plants with amine-based CO₂ capture, while maintaining operational independence.

CO2 capture, MEA solvent, NGCC power plant, Exhaust gas recirculation, Exhaust gas reuse, Operational independence

10.1016/j.energy.2026.140493

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