A Mathematical Model for Emission Risk Control of Coal-Fired Power Plants

We scrutinize the financial and environmental risk and its associated effect due to releasing carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide emission is one of the major greenhouse gases which mostly emit from coal-fired power plants. Various researchers suggested the non-linear optimization model with post-combustion carbon capture technology in coal-fired power plants reduces carbon emissions. Although, the non-linear optimization model may not provide the global optimal solution. Most researchers did not include loss of power due to retrofitting carbon capture technology in power plants in their research articles. Therefore, to reduce emissions, the decision is taken on selecting carbon capture technology by a mixed-integer linear programming approach. Our proposed model counterbalances the loss of electricity generation by incorporating renewable sources of energy as the compensatory power plant. To incorporate uncertainty due to factual information about emission and the overall cost of electricity, we have also developed an additive fuzzy problem formulation to determine the optimal solution. The applicability of our model is illustrated through coal-based power sector data of India’s eastern region. Overall, with the proposed model, we can achieve 30% reduction in emission release, which provides beneficial insights to the decision-maker for investment towards sustainable development