Existing large steam power plant upgraded for hydrogen production Leandro Galanti ⇑ , Alessandro Franzoni, Alberto Traverso, Aristide F. Massardo TPG – DiMSET, Università di Genova, via Montallegro 1, 16145 Genova, Italy article info Article history: Received 9 November 2009 Received in revised form 16 March 2010 Accepted 21 November 2010 Available online 18 December 2010 Keywords: Economic Coal Biomass Hydrogen Gasification Pyrolysis abstract This paper presents and discusses the results of a complete thermoeconomic analysis of an integrated power plant for co-production of electricity and hydrogen via pyrolysis and gasification processes fed by various coals and mixture of coal and biomass, applied to an existing large steam power plant (ENEL Brindisi power plant – 660 MW e ). Two different technologies for the syngas production section are con- sidered: pyrolysis process and direct pressurized gasification. Moreover, the proximity of a hydrogen pro- duction and purification plants to an existing steam power plant favors the inter-exchange of energy streams, mainly in the form of hot water and steam, which reduces the costs of auxiliary equipment. The high quality of the hydrogen would guarantee its usability for distributed generation and for public transport. The results were obtained using WTEMP thermoeconomic software, developed by the Thermo- chemical Power Group of the University of Genoa, and this project has been carried out within the frame- work of the FISR National project ‘‘Integrated systems for hydrogen production and utilization in distributed power generation’’. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The growing attention being paid to the environmental impact of industrial civilization and increased sensitivity to global warming are forcing to search for alternative solutions which can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere [1–3]. Nowadays the utilization of coal has strong attractions from an economic point of view: coal is a widely available, low cost energy source which greatly reduces our dependence on the oil-exporting countries. On the other hand coal utilization is limited by environ- mental problems: the specific CO 2 emission from the use of this fuel is extremely high compared with that of natural gas. More- over, the high concentration of sulphur forces us to adopt expen- sive plants for exhaust post-treatment in order to comply with the limits on atmospheric emissions imposed by national and international legislation. Many thermodynamic and economic studies have been carried out on polygeneration [4–6] including hydrogen production [7–9] and on the production of energy from coal with low CO 2 emissions, using ‘‘pre-combustion capture’’ [10,11], ‘‘post-combustion cap- ture’’ [12,13], and ‘‘oxy-fuel’’ [14,15] strategies. In this context the aim of this project is to investigate the feasi- bility of a new concept regarding integrated systems for hydrogen and electricity co-production from coal and biomass. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to evaluate the economic impact of integrating a hydrogen production system with a traditional exist- ing steam power plant. The option of mixed biomass and coal fuel is also considered because of the avoided CO 2 emissions. The results were obtained using Web-based ThermoEconomic Modular Program (WTEMP) software [16], developed by the Ther- mochemical Power Group (TPG) of Dipartimento di Macchine, Sistemi Energetici e Trasporti (DiMSET) of the University of Genoa, Italy. This work has been carried out in the framework of the National FISR project ‘‘Integrated systems for hydrogen production and exploitation in distributed power generation’’ [17]; in collabora- tion with ENEL-Produzione-Ricerca, Consorzio Pisa Ricerche, RIELLO, CRS4, ENITECNOLOGIE, Università degli Studi di Napoli, CNR – Istituto di Ricerche sulla Combustione di Napoli. 2. WTEMP software The Web-based ThermoEconomic Modular Program (WTEMP) software was developed by the Thermochemical Power Group (TPG) of Dipartimento di Macchine, Sistemi Energetici e Trasporti of the University of Genoa, Italy, in the last 20 years [16]. Recent developments to WTEMP software [18] have addressed the follow- ing critical aspects, which are encountered in energy system analysis:  Determining the mathematical model that best represents the system characteristics. 0306-2619/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.11.033 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 010 3532463; fax: +39 010 3532566. E-mail addresses: leandro.galanti@unige.it (L. Galanti), alessandro.franzoni@ unige.it (A. Franzoni), alberto.traverso@unige.it (A. Traverso), massardo@unige.it (A.F. Massardo). Applied Energy 88 (2011) 1510–1518 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy