A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1996

Due to the increasing environmental consciousness of local community, the development of conventional pulverized coal (PC) power units that are considered as the main resources of air pollution is more and more difficult in Taiwan. In order to minimize the negative effects of coal consumption, e.g. green-house effect and acid rain, the application of clean coal technologies is increasingly important for the viability of coal-based power plants. Pressurized fluidized-bed combustion (PFBC) combined-cycle which is one of the advanced clean coal technologies, with high thermal efficiency, low pollutants emission, high fuel flexibility, and smaller site requirement, is expected to be a potential alternative for power generation in Taiwan. Through the integrated evaluation in present study, it is found that the PFBC generation technology is technically, economically, and financially feasible in Taiwan, and it can meet the local environmental regulation without the requirement of sophisticated de-NOx and de-SOx equipment. But, owing to the PFBC generation technology is brand new in Taiwan, even in the world, the results of the economic risk analysis in present study also implies that the PFBC generation technology has the higher risk probability of being a least-cost alternative compared to the supercritical pulverized coal generation technology due to the high uncertainties on the capital cost, availability, and thermal efficiency of the PFBC technology.