Haibo Zhai

Haibo Zhai, professor of civil and architectural engineering and construction management at the University of Wyoming, is leading the continued development and use of a software tool to calculate performance, emissions and cost power plants powered by fossil fuels.

The Integrated Environmental Control Model (IECM) is a publicly available computer model for the preliminary design and analysis of clean electricity generation technologies using fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage. It is intended for use by engineers, researchers, technology developers, and policy analysts to systematically analyze the cost and performance of fossil fuel power plants of different types and emissions control designs. IECM allows users to easily design the plant to be modeled and quickly obtain results for a variety of technology options.

“On November 18, I will release a new version 12 of IECM, a computer software tool for power plant modeling and techno-economic analysis,” said Zhai, who also holds the Roy and Caryl Distinguished Chair Cline in engineering.

IECM version 12 includes several important improvements, some tweaks and bug fixes, Zhai says. The upgrade includes a variety of biomass feedstocks as new fuel options and an all-new life cycle greenhouse gas emissions module, which collectively allow users to assess cycle impact of life and the economics of biomass-coal co-combustion power plants without and with carbon capture. and storage.

“Co-firing of biomass, combined with carbon capture and storage in coal-fired power plants, can remove carbon dioxide (CO₂) of the atmosphere by capturing and storing CO₂ produced when biomass is converted into energy,” explains Zhai.

This software tool was applied to assess the technical and economic impacts of Wyoming’s reliable and dispatchable low-carbon energy standards and to explore the potential for deploying carbon capture and storage in Wyoming’s electric power sector. ‘State. The associated publication is available here.

“My team will soon add advanced carbon capture technology of up to 99% CO.₂ removing fossil fuel-fired power plants as a new option at IECM and further expanding the software tool with a new platform for hydrogen energy,” Zhai said.

IECM has been supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for several decades and has been adopted by users in more than 90 countries. The release of IECM Version 12 was funded by DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management through a research grant led solely by Zhai.

The software tool was originally developed at Carnegie Mellon University, where Zhai served as IECM director and key developer for 10 years, and Edward Rubin, professor emeritus in the departments of engineering and public policy as well as mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon, who was the founding director.

In 2022, IECM moved to the UW. Under Zhai’s leadership, this software tool has been used by users in more than 40 countries since it was hosted at the UW. Zhai is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon.

IECM has been used for a wide range of applications, including process design, technology assessment, cost estimation, research and development management, risk analysis, policies, strategic planning, marketing studies, teaching and education.

More information about IECM is available on the software tool’s website at www.uwyo.edu/iecm/.