Annual Technology Baseline 2018
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Recommended Citation:
NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory). 2018. 2018 Annual Technology Baseline. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. http://atb.nrel.gov/.
Please consult Guidelines for Using ATB Data:
https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/user-guidance.html
Coal
In a coal power plant:
- Heat is created: Coal is pulverized, mixed with hot air, and burned in suspension.
- Water turns to steam: The heat turns purified water into steam, which is piped to the turbine.
- Steam turns the turbine: The pressure of the steam pushes the turbine blade, turns the shaft in the generator, and creates power.
- Steam is turned back into water: Cool water is drawn into a condenser where the steam turns back into water that can be used over again in the plant.
The process outlined above is adapted from Duke Energy ("How Energy Works"). Coal plant emissions and performance are also impacted by the kind of coal (coal rank) that the plant burns. Lignite, subbituminous, bituminous, and anthracite coal all are of varying quality. The amount of moisture, sulfur, and ash in a particular type of coal can have significant influence on coal plant operation, design, and cost.
(soon to be set up for cofiring biomass)
Renewable energy technical potential, as defined by Lopez et al. 2012, represents the achievable energy generation of a particular technology given system performance, topographic limitations, and environmental and land-use constraints. Technical resource potential corresponds most closely to fossil reserves, as both can be characterized by the prospect of commercial feasibility and depend strongly on available technology at the time of the resource assessment. Coal reserves in the United States are assessed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS, "Coal Assessments").
CAPital EXpenditures (CAPEX): Historical Trends, Current Estimates, and Future Projections
Technology cost and performance projections are taken from the AEO Reference Scenario (EIA 2017). Because little-to-no coal is built in the Reference Scenario, coal capital expenditures (CAPEX) decline according to the minimum learning rate. Pulverized coal is a relatively mature technology, and therefore has a low minimum learning rate. Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology, where the coal is gasified and then fed into a combined cycle turbine, is less mature and is assumed to have a slightly higher minimum learning rate. Coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) is also a newer technology with a higher minimum learning rate.
Comparison with Other Sources
Lazard (2016) does not explicitly define their ranges with and without CCS; thus, the high end of their pulverized coal and IGCC ranges and the low end of their IGCC-CCS range are assumed to be the middle of the full reported range. All sources have been normalized to the same dollar year. Costs vary due to differences in system design (e.g., coal rank), methodology, and plant cost definitions. The coal capital costs include environmental controls to meet current federal regulations.
CAPEX Definition
Capital expenditures (CAPEX) are expenditures required to achieve commercial operation in a given year.
For coal power plants, CAPEX equals interest during construction (ConFinFactor) times the overnight capital cost (OCC).
Overnight capital costs are modified from EIA (2017). Capital costs include overnight capital cost plus defined transmission cost, and it removes a material price index.
Fuel costs, which are just passed through to end user, are taken from EIA (2017).
For the ATB, coal-CCS technology is ultra-supercritical pulverized coal technology fitted with CCS. Both 30% capture and 90% capture options are included for the coal-CCS technology. The CCS plant configuration includes only the cost of capturing and compressing the CO2. It does not include CO2 delivery and storage.
| Overnight Capital Cost ($/kW) | Construction Financing Factor (ConFinFactor) | CAPEX ($/kW) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coal-new:Ultra-supercritical pulverized coal with SO2 and NOx controls | $3.559 | 1.084 | $3,859 |
| Coal-IGCC:Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) | $3,819 | 1.084 | $4,141 |
| Coal-CCS:Ultra-supercritical pulverized coal with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) options (30% / 90% capture) | $4,927 / $5,448 | 1.084 | $5,341 / $5,906 |
CAPEX can be determined for a plant in a specific geographic location as follows:
Regional cost variations and geographically specific grid connection costs are not included in the ATB (CapRegMult = 1; GCC = 0). In the ATB, the input value is overnight capital cost (OCC) and details to calculate interest during construction (ConFinFactor).
In the ATB, CAPEX represents each type of a coal plant with a unique value. Regional cost effects associated with labor rates, material costs, and other regional effects as defined by EIA 2016a expand the range of CAPEX. Unique land-based spur line costs based on distance and transmission line costs are not estimated. The following figure illustrates the ATB representative plant relative to the range of CAPEX including regional costs across the contiguous United States. The ATB representative plants are associated with a regional multiplier of 1.0.
Natural Gas Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle
Operations and maintenance (O&M) costs represent the annual expenditures required to operate and maintain a plant over its lifetime, including:
- Insurance, taxes, land lease payments, and other fixed costs
- Present value and annualized large component replacement costs over technical life
- Scheduled and unscheduled maintenance of power plants, transformers, and other components over the technical lifetime of the plant.
Market data for comparison are limited and generally inconsistent in the range of costs covered and the length of the historical record.
Capacity Factor: Expected Annual Average Energy Production Over Lifetime
The capacity factor represents the assumed annual energy production divided by the totalpossible annual energy production, assuming the plant operates at rated capacity for every hour of the year. For coal plants, the capacity factors are typically lower than their availability factors. Coal plant availability factors have a wide range depending on system design and maintenance schedules.
The capacity factor of dispatchable units is typically a function of the unit's marginal costs and local grid needs (e.g., need for voltage support or limits due to transmission congestion).
Coal power plants have typically been operated as baseload units, although that has changed in many locations due to low natural gas prices and increased penetration of variable renewable technologies. The average capacity factor used in the ATB is the fleet-wide average reported by EIA for 2015. The high capacity factor represents a new plant that would operate as a baseload unit.
Even though IGCC and coal with CCS have experienced limited deployment in the United States, it is expected that their performance characteristics would be similar to new coal power plants.
Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) Projections
Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is a simple metric that combines the primary technology cost and performance parameters: CAPEX, O&M, and capacity factor. It is included in the ATB for illustrative purposes. The ATB focuses on defining the primary cost and performance parameters for use in electric sector modeling or other analysis where more sophisticated comparisons among technologies are made. The LCOE accounts for the energy component of electric system planning and operation. The LCOE uses an annual average capacity factor when spreading costs over the anticipated energy generation. This annual capacity factor ignores specific operating behavior such as ramping, start-up, and shutdown that could be relevant for more detailed evaluations of generator cost and value. Electricity generation technologies have different capabilities to provide such services. For example, wind and PV are primarily energy service providers, while the other electricity generation technologies provide capacity and flexibility services in addition to energy. These capacity and flexibility services are difficult to value and depend strongly on the system in which a new generation plant is introduced. These services are represented in electric sector models such as the ReEDS model and corresponding analysis results such as the Standard Scenarios.
References
Annual Energy Outlook 2017 with Projections to 2050. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy. January 5, 2017. http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/0383(2017).pdf.
B&V (Black & Veatch). 2012. Cost and Performance Data for Power Generation Technologies. Black & Veatch Corporation. February 2012. http://bv.com/docs/reports-studies/nrel-cost-report.pdf.
EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration). 2016a. Capital Cost Estimates for Utility Scale Electricity Generating Plants. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy. November 2016. https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capcost_assumption.pdf.
Lazard. 2016. Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis-Version 10.0. December 2016. New York: Lazard. https://www.lazard.com/media/438038/levelized-cost-of-energy-v100.pdf.
Lopez, Anthony, Billy Roberts, Donna Heimiller, Nate Blair, and Gian Porro. 2012. U.S. Renewable Energy Technical Potentials: A GIS-Based Analysis. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-6A20-51946. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51946.pdf.
NETL (National Energy Technology Laboratory: Tim Fout, Alexander Zoelle, Dale Keairns, Marc Turner, Mark Woods, Norma Kuehn, Vasant Shah, Vincent Chou, Lora Pinkerton). 2015. Fossil Energy Plants: Volume 1a: Bituminous Coal (PC) and Natural Gas to Electricity, Revision 3. DOE/NETL-2015/1723. http://www.netl.doe.gov/File%20Library/Research/Energy%20Analysis/Publications/Rev3Vol1aPC_NGCC_final.pdf.
Rubin, Edward S., John E. Davison, and Howard J. Herzog. 2015. "The Cost of CO2 Capture and Storage." International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 40(September 2015): 378–400. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750583615001814, preprint available at http://www.cmu.edu/epp/iecm/rubin/PDF%20files/2015/Rubin_et_al_ThecostofCCS_IJGGC_2015.pdf.