Coal-Fired Power Plants (CFPPs)
Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC)
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| The IGCC process uses gas from a gasification process to operate a gas combustion
turbine to generate power. Coal reacts chemically with steam and oxygen at high
temperatures producing a gas. This gas is used in a gas turbine to generate power.
Gases exiting the gas turbine, still at high temperatures, are then used to produce
steam that powers a steam generator producing more electricity. |
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  IGCC Process Diagram |
Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) is one of the newest concepts
of advanced power generation with the most efficient power and the
lowest emission of pollutants. Although we refer to the technology as new, the first IGCC plant to produce power was in Germany
in the 1970s. The first successful IGCC
demonstration on a commercial scale was a 100 MW project at Cool Water, CA. The
Nation's first "greenfield"
commercial plant was the Polk Power Station near Mulberry, FL. The technology is still emerging and
changing but it is touted as the cleanest to date.
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 Gasification-based System Concepts. |
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Future IGCC Systems
A future system may be able to use the remaining gases as
fuel to power a fuel cell creating a third form of power generation from a
single generating facility. A conventional coal-fired power plant using only
steam turbine generation has an efficiency of 33 to 40%--meaning it captures
only 33-40% of the energy in the coal. The efficiency of combined cycle plants
of the future could exceed 60%. Another benefit of the technology would be to
separate hydrogen from the off-gas to be used as fuel for hydrogen vehicles.
The following diagram highlights how the future, or anticipated, IGCC process
could work: capturing as much energy in the coal as possible, reusing the gas
and steam, and using fuel cells to generate more electricity without emitting
any pollutants.
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