A Systematic Framework for the Integration of Carbon Capture, Renewables and Energy Storage Systems for Sustainable Energy

In this work, we address the challenges associated with decarbonizing electricity grids through a decentralized integration scheme of individual fossil power plants with energy storage and flexible CO2 capture. To this end, we develop a technology design and downselection framework and demonstrate a prototype tool called THESEUS (TecHno-Economic framework for Systematic Energy storage Utilization and downSelection) which enables an extensive techno-economic analysis of integrating fossil power plants with several candidate energy storage technologies which include cryogenic, molten-salt, compressed air, and batteries. The core of THESEUS is a large-scale mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP)-based optimization that determines an optimal selection and combination of energy storage technologies for minimizing the cost of meeting the grid electricity demand. We demonstrate THESEUS through a case study for reducing the fossil power plant cycling and minimizing carbon emissions while satisfying sharp spikes in energy demands.