1. Natural Gas Power

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Although fuel cost in levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) substantially vary between power generated by conventional natural gas combined cycle (NGCC); advanced NGCC conventional simple cycle (aka “conventional combustion turbine”) natural gas; natural gas advanced simple cycle, the conservative estimate is that fuel costs account for 55% of LCOE.  Accordingly, if in 2019 all gas turbines in the power industry in the US were enhanced with AG-Cycle, they would have consumed around 60% less natural gas, resulting in average of [55*0.6], i.e. 33% reduction of natural gas power cost, which would have been equivalent to $33.7 bn. 

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2. Coal Power

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The global trend for power decarbonzation in developed countries puts a lot of pressure on coal power segment, because coal power is fairly associated with higher specific carbon dioxide emission due to relatively low average efficiency of around [3,412/10,514], i.e. 32.5%*. As a result, the percentage of coal power has been steadily falling during the last decade: in 2010 1.847 tr kWh of power came from coal and in 2019, – only 0.966 tr kWh. Although the latest improvements in coal power production technologies have partially  alleviated the problem, they boosted overnight costs of such advanced coal power plants. AG-Cycle can permanently fix the problem of coal plants scheduled for decommissioning, and dramatically cut the costs of power produced in contemporary coal power plants.

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*(estimated for 2019)

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3. Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Power

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AG-Cycle is fully compatible with ultimately promising, nascent supercritical carbon dioxide technology (S-CO2). Supercritical carbon dioxide is CO2 in a state at very high pressure and temperature. S-CO2 turbine is very compact, at least one order of magnitude the size of a steam turbine of a similar output, and substantially cheaper then steam turbines. S-CO2 simple cycle has the potential to attain 50% efficiency, which AG-Cycle will further increase by two and half-fold.

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Intrinsic advantages of S-CO2 attracted attention of key players in the industry: Toshiba built 50 Mw S-CO2 turbine; General Electric tests 10 Mw S-CO2 turbine; Sandia National Laboratories is expected to present commercial 10 Mw S-CO2 power system this year. Less known companies also joined the race: Echogen Power Systems is testing 8 Mw heat recovery engine; Net Power runs tests of its 50 Mw S-CO2 oxy-fuel power plant with carbon capture in Texas.

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“S-CO2 and AG-Cycle pair” is a match made in haven, if utilized as a power plant for serial hybrid electric medium- and long-haul aircraft. In addition to very high gravimetric power and unprecedented efficiency, such power plant could run on cheap, low-grade fuels instead of jet fuel.