Feasible roadmap for CCS retrofit of coal-based power plants to reduce Chinese carbon emissions by 2050

In the medium to long term, China must conduct deep emission reduction actions to transform the country’s economy and meet the conditions of the Paris Agreement. As an advanced emission reduction technology, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is undoubtedly an important means of achieving this goal. China must consider how to retrofit existing thermal power plants to install CCS technology. Thus, the expected future roadmap for power plants with CO2 capture is of significant interest. To achieve this aim, we propose a new CCS project investment model, which helps design the CCS development roadmap for achieving the emission targets for 2050. Reductions in the cost of technologies as a result of learning-by-doing is considered to enrich the model to describe the reality more sensibly. Through some mathematical skills, we transform the original continuous problem into a nonlinear integer programming problem. By solving the model, we are trying to answer questions about when to adopt CCS technology and the cost. The results reveal that early large-scale CCS demonstrations are not necessary. The peak investment period of CCS is around 2035. Operating costs account for 80% of the overall cost of CCS, and thus, policymakers must fully motivate the development and investment of operating technologies, especially capture technologies. The results also show that when the scale of CCS technology is promoted, flexible installation levels can be considered to improve efficiency and reduce costs.