Investigating the competitiveness of Carbon Capture and Storage in Italian power plants under different investment scenarios

This paper explores the viability of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in Italy by examining two different scenarios. The first scenario evaluates the investments on traditional power generation technologies, i.e. USC (Ultra Super Critical), NGCC (Natural Gas Combined Cycle) and IGCC (Integrated Gas Combined Cycle), with and without CCS, and on wind farms; the second scenario studies the convenience of retrofitting existing Italian power plants with respect to the construction of new capture-ready plants. To the scope, a techno-economic analysis based on the calculation of the LCOE (Levelised Cost Of Electricity), the CCAV (cost of CO2 avoided) and the CCAP (cost of CO2 captured) is assessed. Beyond these measures, the analysis in both scenarios accounts for the calculation of the so-called LACE (Levelised Avoided Cost of Electricity) in order to evaluate the profitability of CCS systems and, therefore, to properly orient CCS investment decision in Italy.