The Global Coal Atlas: Techno-Economic Analysis of Converting the World's Coal-Fired Power Plants into Thermal Storage Power Plants

Abstract

As part of the Coal Atlas project, technical concepts were developed and analyzed for converting existing grid-connected coal-fired power plants into CO2-free Thermal Storage Power Plants (TSPP). In a TSPP, a high-temperature thermal storage is charged with renewable electricity (Power-To-Heat) and later discharged via the existing power block and grid connection (Heat-To-Power), converting fluctuating renewable generation into dispatchable power. A global database of approximately 7,000 coal power plants served as the basis for the analysis. Two representative plant configurations were modeled in Ebsilon Professional and then transferred to the DLR software greenius for large-scale simulation of all plants under a typical 12 h charging / 12 h discharging profile. The results were processed with the DLR TEPET tool to perform a techno-economic assessment, yielding round-trip efficiency, annual yield, CAPEX, OPEX, LCOE, as well as CO2 avoidance potential and associated costs for each site. This work provides the first global-scale techno-economic assessment of converting the existing coal power fleet into sustainable, dispatchable thermal storage systems. The results are summarized in an individual fact sheet for each plant (provided as annex), intended to support decision-makers in industry and policy.