Demystifying Coal Repurposing within the World Vitality Transition – CleanTechnica – Uplaza

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The repurposing of coal crops is gaining buzz. In a brand new article sequence, Discovering (Re)goal, we break down what it’s and why it issues.

Strain to speed up a managed phaseout of unabated coal has been constructing worldwide to attain net-zero targets and curb local weather change. Alongside retirement, “repurposing” coal crops is surfacing as a key technique for regulators, utilities, and plant house owners in rising markets to fulfill these objectives, particularly the place entry to low-cost clear know-how and financing is proscribed. Latest IEA studies spotlight the potential of repurposing coal crops, for instance for elevated flexibility, to assist meet vitality transition targets. This strategy is central to initiatives like Indonesia’s Simply Vitality Transition Partnership, the place coal plant repurposing is a cornerstone of its managed phaseout technique. Moreover, varied organizations, together with the Carbon Belief, CIF, and WEF have revealed instruments and guides on coal plant repurposing.

Discovering the easiest way to repurpose a coal plant is a posh and troublesome course of to navigate. First, there may be a variety of attainable know-how choices. Second, lots of the know-how choices contain trade-offs in long-term local weather influence, funding wants, job creation, bankability, and system reliability. Context-based technical and monetary particulars are important in balancing these trade-offs and understanding how and when a coal repurposing challenge can transfer ahead. Getting the specifics a couple of coal repurposing strategy will finally increase its credibility as an emissions discount instrument; however it’s simpler stated than performed.

That is the primary article in our sequence to demystify repurposing by clarifying what it’s and the way decision-makers ought to contemplate repurposing choices, drawing on sensible and real-world case research. On this first article, we begin with the fundamentals of what repurposing is, when it might make sense, and its key trade-offs.

Eradicating the excitement: what, actually, is coal plant repurposing?

Coal plant repurposing entails reusing, refurbishing, or retrofitting a coal-fired energy plant for brand spanking new makes use of, new modes of operation, or each. It usually entails tasks on the coal plant web site and authentic interconnection level.

So, why pursue coal plant repurposing? Repurposing coal crops can present precious grid providers to assist reliability and grid operations. When carried out strategically, it will possibly assist overcome the near-term challenges to scaling up clear vitality, like monetary and technical constraints, whereas decreasing interim emissions and enabling continued financial alternatives for staff and communities.

Provided that repurposing ought to be utilized as a transition technique to assist grid operations as grids decarbonize, RMI categorizes repurposing approaches primarily based on their function and performance in sustaining grid reliability: post-retirement reuse, operational flexibility, and decrease emissions steady output (LECO). A number of tasks worldwide have already been carried out beneath these approaches.

Publish-retirement reuse

Publish-retirement reuse is feasible if a coal plant’s era might be eliminated or changed with out affecting reliability. The positioning and a few tools might be reused for a clear vitality challenge that maintains partial vitality era capability, or for different infrastructure that helps grid stability. Publish-retirement reuse has primarily occurred in two methods: reuse of interconnection infrastructure for renewable amenities like clear repowering tasks in the USA, and conversion to synchronous condensers like in Australia to assist with frequency and voltage management.

Operational flexibility

On this class, repurposed coal crops present versatile or load-following providers to permit peak shifting and assist the combination of rising shares of variable renewable vitality sources. With out repurposing, coal energy crops usually function repeatedly at a gradual output degree, making it difficult to regulate their era to accommodate fluctuations in renewable vitality availability or grid demand. The adoption of this strategy can normally be pursued when decreasing or canceling coal plant output is not going to have an effect on grid reliability throughout low and intermediate internet load hours. There are two fundamental technological options being carried out for operational flexibility: versatile coal era and vitality storage.

Versatile coal energy era is a technological resolution the place, by retrofits and tools upgrades, coal crops can begin up shortly, function at decrease minimal steady masses, and enhance ramp charges. Given it entails continued reliance on coal, this know-how is considered solely as a transitional car to make sure grid reliability as clear vitality scales. A cleaner and commercially out there various to offer this flexibility and/or ancillary providers is stand-alone vitality storage. These storage techniques can take the type of conventional batteries (e.g., lithium-ion or iron-air) or thermal storage, the place electrical energy is used to warmth thermal mass supplies (resembling molten salts), like Venture Alba in Chile.

Decrease emissions steady output (LECO)

In pockets of the grid dealing with reliability issues over prolonged time durations, “firm” era assets could also be wanted. The target of LECO is to repurpose a coal plant to proceed offering steady or steady era, whereas nonetheless decreasing emissions. In rising economies with very younger coal fleets, LECO could be a possible various to the business-as-usual operation of the coal plant. This strategy is normally the “last resort” because it takes the smallest step towards a profitable transition in contrast with different approaches and is commonly expensive primarily based on the know-how choices for LECO right now.

There are a number of proposed technological options to scale back the emissions influence of steady coal plant operation, like retrofitting CFPPs to co-fire with, or convert absolutely to, various fuels resembling biomass and ammonia. Small modular nuclear reactors provide a extra compact various to conventional nuclear energy crops; and carbon seize, utilization, and storage has been proposed as a future choice for mitigating emissions from remaining unabated crops — although the anticipated share of that is low.

Navigating repurposing selections and trade-offs

Whereas these approaches are primarily centered on sustaining grid reliability or assembly required electrical energy providers, there are different objectives or outcomes to pursue when evaluating repurposing choices. These embrace electrical energy prices, local weather, jobs, and monetary viability. Many of those objectives could also be at odds with one another. For instance, a flexibility service could also be required within the grid, nevertheless it won’t be remunerated sufficient to make it financially engaging. Furthermore, near-term advantages of repurposing might be outweighed by long-term penalties (like fossil gasoline lock-in) if planning for repurposing doesn’t assist a widespread shift to scrub vitality. Asset-level outcomes may have ripple results at a system-level, the place selecting a sure repurposing pathway could necessitate different off-site actions to complement the repurposing determination in parallel.

The idea of coal repurposing holds promise as a possible technique for transitioning away from fossil fuels; nonetheless, its effectiveness and feasibility rely closely on the particular circumstances of every case. When used as a “catch-all” resolution with out setting clear objectives, it might appear much less credible as a method to scale back emissions. Moreover, navigating the intricacies of repurposing can show difficult for plant house owners and policymakers alike. To deal with this conundrum, RMI’s coal repurposing article sequence will delve into these complexities, offering concrete examples that illustrate important tradeoffs that completely different determination makers may contemplate of their coal repurposing plan.

RMI is grateful to Bloomberg Philanthropies for his or her beneficiant assist of this work.

By Selena Kay Galeos, Diego Angel Hakim, Tyeler Matsuo © 2024 RMI. Revealed with permission. Courtesy of RMI.