Is There an Optimal Entry Time for Carbon Capture and Storage? A Case Study for Australia's National Electricity Market

This paper examines the economic competitiveness of implementing Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) for deployment on the Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) against conventional base load electricity generation. By examining the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) for sent out generation as a suitable hurdle for judging the future prospects of different technology types, we examine the likely mix of generation assets that could be invested in. After examining the LCOE it is shown that CCS enabled technologies will not be competitive in Australia until 2025, which is well beyond the first emissions reduction target for 2020.