ACT on RE+FLEX: Accelerating Coal Transition through Repurposing Coal Plants into Renewable and Flexibility Centers

Abstract

Decarbonizing the power sector forms a critical part of the global combat against climate change. This requires inter alia retirement of the global coal power plant fleet of 2,100 GW. Although a significant part of this capacity is aging, there are complex issues that need to be addressed including the economic viability of existing coal plants in some countries relative to renewable projects and barriers to exit of coal. We have used detailed power plant level operational cost data for ten developing countries with significant share of coal and compared these with levelized cost of renewables, to demonstrate that competitiveness of coal varies significantly across different geographies. Countries like India where renewable projects have been highly competitive and there is an aging fleet of coal plants many of which are far away from mines, are already highly uncompetitive. On the other hand, countries like South Africa that have relatively inexpensive coal plants, but the average cost of renewable projects have not yet dropped sufficiently (as of 2020), will require special efforts to phase out coal completely beyond plants that have reached, or gone well past their technical life. Accelerated retirement of coal would require a new business model that allows repurposing some of these sites for alternative usage including generation from renewables, conversion of the incumbent generator into a synchronous condenser coupled with a fly wheel to provide reactive power and inertia; and installation of energy storage systems. As a repurposed coal plant for energy related activities can retain part of the workforce, it can also address some of the complex social issues. In order to develop a comprehensive repurposing program at a national level, the process needs to follow a least-cost planning methodology to identify prospective coal plant candidates for repurposing and then undertake a cost-benefit analysis of individual projects. We have demonstrated this methodology using a case study for Morocco.