CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS

VOL. 56, 2017

A publication of

The Italian Association
of Chemical Engineering
Online at www.aidic.it/cet

Guest Editors: Jiří Jaromír Klemeš, Peng Yen Liew, Wai Shin Ho, Jeng Shiun Lim
Copyright © 2017, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l.,

ISBN 978-88-95608-47-1; ISSN 2283-9216

Economic Assessment of Microalgae-Based CO2 Utilization in

Power Plant Sector in Malaysia

Muhammad Nurariffudina, Haslenda Hashim*,a, Lim Jeng Shiuna, Ho Chin Siongb

aProcess System Engineering Centre (PROSPECT), Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Research Institute for

Sustainable Environment (RISE), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia
bUTM Low Carbon Asia Research Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia

haslenda@utm.my

Fossil fuel-fired power plants are the largest source of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions. Microalgae-based

Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) has becoming one of the promising technologies to reduce CO2 emissions

due to the ability of microalgae to absorb the CO2 for photosynthesis. Integrating this technology with other CO2

mitigation practices such as co-firing biomass with coal may potentially becoming a potential solution to solve

the aforementioned issue towards achieving total negative emissions. In this study, the economic potential of

integrated coal-fired power plant comprising of biomass co-firing with microalgae-based CCU (Bio-CCU) is

investigated.

1. Introduction

Government of Malaysia has pledged to reduce 45 % of CO2 emissions by 2030 as compared to the previous

pledge which is to reduce carbon emission intensity of gross domestic product (GDP) up to 40% by 2020 (Goh,

2015). In supporting this pledge, various agencies and industries are increasing their efforts to meet the future

target. In Malaysia, one of the strategies to reduce the GHG emissions contributed by power generation sector

is through the utilization of renewable energy. However, the percentage of renewable energy implementation is

still low in Malaysia. Hence, it is important to introduce new strategy which may efficiently mitigate the GHG

emissions.

One of effective strategies is by the implementation of Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration (CCUS).

The term CCUS is resulted from combination of two concepts which are Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)

and Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU). As these two terms have their own respective meaning, the main

goal is one, which is to reduce CO2 emissions worldwide towards achieving total negative emissions of GHG.

Numerous research in CCUS area is majorly focusing on CO2 injection for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and

CO2 sequestration in the geological sites. The major problems regarding these two technologies are high

investment and operating costs of CO2 transportation and compression (Hasan et al., 2015). Therefore, it is

important to introduce CO2 utilization technologies which neglects the needs of CO2 transportation and

compression such as microalgae bio-fixation technology.

Microalgae-based technology provides unique approach to reduce CO2 emissions due to the ability of

microalgae to absorb CO2 for photosynthesis (Gutiérrez-Arriaga, 2014). Microalgae also can double its own

biomass in less than one day for most of species (Tredici, 2010). Substantial amount of works regarding the

individual development of microalgae technologies have already been conducted. However, only few studies

are conducted regarding the optimal planning network which involves the integration of coal-fired power plant

with microalgae-based CCU. The integrated system consisting of biomass co-firing with microalgae-based CCU

(Bio-CCU) has a potential to provide effective solutions for CO2 abatement in Malaysia. Therefore, this paper

first reviews applications of oil palm biomass for co-firing system, their availability in specific case study area

and then discussing on the proposed Bio-CCU complex. Case study with economic analysis is also presented

for possible extension into detailed studies later.

DOI: 10.3303/CET1756108

Please cite this article as: Nurariffudin M., Hashim H., Lim J.S., Ho C.S., 2017, Economic assessment of microalgae-based co2 utilization in
power plant sector in malaysia, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 56, 643-648 DOI:10.3303/CET1756108

643

2. Technology reviews

The first section reviews the potential of oil palm biomass for co-firing in Malaysia whereas second section

reviews the Bio-CCU technology.

2.1 Oil palm biomass for co-firing

Co-firing can be defined as combustion of two or more different fuels in same power generation system

purposely to reduce CO2 emissions resulted from combustion of fossil fuels (Rahman and Shamsudin, 2013).

Co-firing coal with biomass causes less CO2 emissions as biomass substitutes lower carbon content than coal.

In Malaysia, oil palm became the largest contributors of biomass (77 %), followed by rice residue (9.1 %) and

forestry residue (8.2 %) while the remaining 5.2 % are consists of other agricultural biomass (Griffin et al., 2014).

As reported by Abdullah et al. (2015), oil palm biomass can be categorized as oil palm fronds (OPF), oil palm

trunks (OPT) and fresh fruit bunch (FFB) with FFB can be divided into various type of biomass. FFB consists of

crude palm oil (CPO), palm kernel (PK), palm kernel shell (PKS), mesocarb fibre (MF), empty fruit bunch (EFB)

and palm oil mill effluent (POME). EFB is chosen to be co-fired with coal due to its known usage for electricity

generation in the same case study area. EFB amount is acquired by multiplying annual FFB production with

EFB generation rate, 0.2 t EFB/t FFB (Uemura et al., 2016).

In Perak, Maju Intan Biomass Energy Sdn Bhd is becoming one of the pioneers on the implementation of

renewable energy (RE) technology in this state. With the plant capacity of 12 MW, the energy production

requires about 500 t daily of EFB, equivalent to 182,500 t/y (Loh, 2015). Assuming only this company is using

EFB in Perak, there is still a large amount of unutilized EFB in that state. To provide a realistic case study,

assumption of 50 % EFB utilization in Perak is used. Table 1 shows the FFB and EFB scenario in Perak. Based

on remaining figure which is 972,922 t/y, the availability of EFB should be sufficient enough to be utilized for co-

firing system.

Table 1: Annual production of FFB and EFB in Perak state

Amount (t/y) Reference

FFB annual production 8,460,189 MPOB (2015)

EFB annual production 1,945,844 MPOB (2015)

Unutilized EFB 972,922 -

2.2 Integrated Bio-CCU complex

As the common supply chain networks proposed by previous researchers are highly related to EOR-based CCS

technology, the need to proposed different network is essential in discovering the possibility of other system to

mitigate CO2. The proposed network as illustrated in Figure 1 shows supply chain flow diagram which involves

types of fuel, power generation section, CO2 capture technologies and microalgae processing technologies. In

this study, only a single selection of technology for each section in the network is included to accommodate

simplified assessment. MEA absorption is chosen for CO2 capture and bubble column photobioreactor (PBR) is

chosen for cultivation technology. The aim of Bio-CCU is to reduce the total net emissions of CO2 by substituting

coal with biofuels which have lower carbon content. Microalgae processing enhances the CO2 mitigation by

absorbing the CO2 from combustion of fuels and then producing dried microalgae biomass which also can be

co-fired in the boiler.

Figure 1: Integrated Bio-CCU complex

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3. Case study: Economic potential and CO2 emission reduction of an integrated system

Case study area is located in Manjung, Perak, where there is a 3100 MW coal-fired power plant known as Sultan

Azlan Shah Power Station, owned by Tenaga National Berhad (TNB) (TNBF, 2015a). The case study considers

the analysis of three power plant types which are pulverized coal (PC), co-fired power plant (CPP) and biomass

co-firing power plant with CCU (Bio-CCU). Electricity generation and CO2 emission are calculated by multiplying

the amount of fuel consumed with fuel conversion factor (MWh/t fuel) and fuel emission factor (t CO2/t fuel)

respectively. Table 2 provides information regarding both conversion factors. In this study, one unit of TNB

Janamanjung power plant with a capacity of 1000 MW is chosen for case study to illustrate the materials flow

through single unit boiler with steam turbine. The capacity factor of coal-fired power plant is 68.5 % (EIA, 2016).

This study considers co-firing rate of 20 % for both CPP and Bio-CCU cases. For Bio-CCU, 10 % of EFB co-

firing rate and 10 % of microalgae co-firing rate are considered. For microalgae processing, the operating

conditions are 4.02 g CO2/L.d of CO2 fixation rate, 2.19 g algae/L.d of algae yield, 28 MJ.m-2.d-1 of radiation, 4

% of photosynthetic efficiency and 40 m-1 of surface to volume ratio (S-V) (Rezvani et al., 2016).

Table 2: Fuel conversion and emission factors

Fuel type Fuel conversion factor

(MWh/t fuel)

Reference Fuel emission factor

(MWh/t fuel)

Reference

Coal 8.140 Kadam (2002) 2.560 EPA (2014)

EFB 5.370 Fan et al. (2011) 0.510 Klaarenbeeksingle (2009)

Microalgae 3.950 Ma and Hemmers (2011) 0.492 Ma and Hemmers (2011)

Table 3: Power plant information

Plant information PC CPP Bio-CCU

Coal (t/y) 737,174 589,740 589,740

EFB (t/y) - 223,486 111,743

Dried microalgae (t/y) - - 151,914

Capacity (MW) 1,000 1,000 1,000

Annual generation (MWh/y) 6,000,600 6,000,600 6,000,600

Table 4: Microalgae bio-fixation operating conditions

Plant information Value Unit References

Fixation rate 4.02 g CO2/L.d Rezvani et al., 2016

Algae yield 2.19 g algae/L.d Rezvani et al., 2016

Culture volume 1.90x10
+8 L -

Area 3.80 ha -

Table 5: Economic parameters

Parameters Type Value Unit Reference

Electricity Selling price 93.75 USD/MWh TNB (2016)

Coal Raw material price 53.00 USD/t Sinadia (2016)

EFB Raw material price 15.80 USD/t Harsono et al. (2016)

Co-firing retrofit (20%) Capital cost 1.37 USD/MWh Griffin et al. (2014)

Power plant Operating cost 4.32 USD/MWh EIA (2013)

Carbon capture Capital cost 2.80 USD/MWh Lee et al. (2008)

Operating cost 0.11 USD/MWh Lee et al. (2008)

Microalgae cultivation Capital cost 6400.00 USD/ha Lundquist et al. (2010)

Operating cost 115.60 USD/tonne Lundquist et al. (2010)

Microalgae harvesting Capital cost 24.90 USD/tonne Lundquist et al. (2010)

Operating cost 31.20 USD/tonne Lundquist et al. (2010)

Microalgae drying Capital cost 112.30 USD/tonne Lundquist et al. (2010)

Operating cost 134.20 USD/tonne Lundquist et al. (2010)

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Table 6: Economic assessment and percentage of CO2 reduction emission

PC CPP Bio-CCU

Raw material costs

Coal (USD/y) 3.91x10+7 3.13x10+7 3.13x10+7

EFB (USD/y) - 3.53x10+6 1.77x10+6

Total (USD/y) 3.91x10
+7 3.48x10+7 3.30x10+7

Capital costs

Co-firing retrofit (20%) (USD/y) - 8.22x10
+6 8.22x10+6

Carbon capture (USD/y) - - 1.68x10
+7

Microalgae processing (USD/y) - - 2.08x10
+7

Total (USD/y) - 8.22x10
+6 4.59x10+7

Operating costs

Power plant (USD/y) 2.59x10
+7 2.59x10+7 2.59x10+7

Carbon capture (USD/y) - - 6.72x10
+5

Microalgae processing (USD/y) - - 4.27x10
+7

Total (USD/y) 2.59x10
+7 2.59x10+7 6.93x10+7

Revenue

Electricity (USD/y) 5.63x10
+8 5.63x10+8 5.63x10+8

Total (USD/y) 5.63x10
+8 5.63x10+8 5.63x10+8

Profit (USD/y) 497,574,754.30 493,637,724.11 414,394,683.53

Profit penalty (%) 0 (Baseline) -0.79 -16.72

CO2 emitted (t CO2/y) 1,887,167.58 1,623,711.14 1,362,608.16

CO2 fixated (%) 0 (Baseline) 13.96 27.80

The three scenarios are analysed by examining the economics and CO2 emission reductions. The profit is

determined by subtracting the revenue generated from electricity generation with capital and operating costs

involves in each case. The profit penalty and CO2 fixation rate is calculated as compare to baseline value. The

base case (PC) scenario shows that without installing co-firing and CCU systems, the profit of power plant is

estimated to be at USD 497,574,754.30/y. By installing co-firing system (CPP), it can be seen that profit is

slightly reduced by 0.79 % at USD 3.9 million/y although annual cost of fuel is decrease. This is due to the fact

that retrofitting a co-firing system in existing power plant involves minor modification on the boiler or furnace

combustion system, resulting in the small addition to the investment cost. Trade-off between cost reduction and

cost addition are not sufficient enough for CPP to achieve the baseline profit. This minimal decline of profit can

be recovered through government incentives. Although there is no existing incentive regarding co-firing

technology in Malaysia, it can be suggested that this technology should be considered for an incentive under

renewable energy scheme due to the utilization of biomass as biofuel. CPP displays a great environmental

performance with CO2 minimization at 13.96 % as compare to the baseline emissions. This shows that

implementation of biomass co-firing alone can offers a promising route for GHG mitigation. If no comparison of

profit is conducted between CPP and PC, CPP still generates a high profit which is USD 493,637,724.11/y.

For Bio-CCU scenario, 16.72 % of profit penalty is encountered where USD 83 million is loss annually but still,

if no comparison of profit is conducted, Bio-CCU generates USD 414,394,683.53/y. The reason for this critical

profit loss is due to high technological costs. As reported by Rizwan et al. (2015), microalgae processing facilities

have high operating and investment costs due to lack amount of facilities constructed worldwide. On the other

hand, this is also due to the limitations which affect the capabilities of this technology to reduce more CO 2

emissions. The limitation is that, the area of case study is not large enough to support a major scale

implementation of microalgae PBR technology. This caused insufficient amount of PBR which can be installed

to generate microalgae biomass to be co-fired. Process integration to minimize the operating cost of power plant

is not conducted in this study. The integration of electricity, heat and water within the power plant will provide

an optimal utilities configuration to achieve a minimum operating cost. Other than that, microalgae produced

should be considered for utilization to produce more valuable bio-products such as lipid, protein, pigments and

fatty acids and improve the competitiveness. Since this type of power plant also has a great performance in

reducing CO2 emissions, again, after solving all the limitations stated above, government incentives can really

support the implementation of this promising sustainable technology. The applicability of Bio-CCU for

implementation in Malaysia can be investigated for the other three states which have coal-fired power plant.

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The power plants are Jimah Power Station in Negeri Sembilan, Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Power

Station in Selangor and Tanjung Bin Power Station in Johor (TNBF, 2015b).

4. Conclusion

In this study, the economic potential of integrated coal-fired power plant which comprises of biomass co-firing

technology, together with microalgae-based CCU tecnology is investigated. It can be concluded that installing

co-firing system and CCU technology into existing power plant contributes to great performances in reducing

environmental impacts but causing penalty to the profits. The case study tested the abilities of three types of

power plant, PP, CPP and Bio-CCU in the reduction of CO2 emissions. It can be shown that installing co-firing

system (CPP) caused about 13.96% of CO2 emission reduction but causing a slight decrease of the annual

profit. Integrating CCU with co-firing (Bio-CCU) increased the CO2 emission reduction at the rate of 27.80% but

causing a 16.72% penalty to profit. However, if no comparison of profit is conducted as compare to baseline

value for both of the systems, CPP and Bio-CCU still generate high profits. The drawback of this technology is

high operating and investment costs of microalgae processing facilities. This cost competitiveness can be

enhanced by searching for suitable area to build microalgae processing facilities, implementing microalgae-

based CO2 utilization to produce more valuable bioproducts and conducting process integration to reduce

operating costs.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) Malaysia Vot. No. 7301.4B145, Research
Student Grant (RSG) Vot. No. 2546.14H46 and JICA JST SATREPS programme.

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