{
  "abstract": "As fossil power plants increasingly cycle to balance variable renewable generation, carbon capture plants must be designed for a wide range of part-load operating conditions, to avoid excessive capital costs. However, accounting for the variability in design optimization yields higher computational complexity, and is therefore not a current design methodology. Here, we apply two-stage stochastic optimization to identify optimal carbon capture plant designs accounting for part-load flue gas conditions. We reduce computational complexity through a data-driven approach-to-equilibrium model of the absorption and desorption processes. Operating scenarios are derived from real-world part-load operation data of coal and natural gas combined cycle power plants. Our results demonstrate that designs optimized over multiple operating scenarios substantially reduce equipment sizes, lowering capital costs by 5-9 % at the expense of higher operating costs, resulting in a moderate reduction in total annualized cost by 0.5-1.6 %. The lowest costs are achieved when targeting an average capture target across operating scenarios, which allows CO2 capture to be shifted from full-load to part-load periods to reduce peak equipment sizes without compromising overall CO2 emission reductions. These cost benefits are robust across sensitivity analyses and increase with higher shares of part-load operation. Thus, part-load variability should be considered at the design stage, particularly for plants subject to variable load.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2610.36232",
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "David Yang Shu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Boxun Huang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Yurim Kim"
    },
    {
      "name": "Rahul Gandhi"
    },
    {
      "name": "Randall Field"
    },
    {
      "name": "Sungho Shin"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4ymg4p31a4mqn.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2610.36232",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "4ymg4p31a4mqn",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.36232",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "math.OC"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2210|Carbon Dioxide Capture Technologies"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7224078024",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.36232",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-26",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4ymg4p31a4mqn.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:35:53Z",
      "native_id": "2610.36232",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.36232"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "mathematics",
      "origin": "arxiv:math.OC",
      "subfield": "optimisation-control"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Cost benefits of designing carbon capture processes for part-load operation of power plants",
  "title_text": "Cost benefits of designing carbon capture processes for part-load operation of power plants",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:35:53Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4ymg4p31a4mqn",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}