Patent ID: 8110310

Claim:
A power generating plant, comprising: a coal gasification furnace that burns coal to obtain a fuel gas; a gas treatment unit that converts the fuel gas obtained by the coal gasification furnace into a desired CO gas-containing gas; a shift reaction unit that subjects the CO gas-containing gas obtained by the gas treatment unit to a chemical reaction to form H 2 and CO 2 ; a molten carbonate fuel cell which has an anode supplied with an anode gas containing H 2 obtained by the shift reaction unit, which has a cathode supplied with a cathode gas containing pure oxygen and a CO 2 gas, and which performs power generation by an electrochemical reaction between the anode gas and the cathode gas; a combustor for burning a cathode exhaust of the cathode and an anode exhaust of the anode; a turbine for expanding a combustion gas from the combustor to obtain power; waste heat recovery equipment which performs heat recovery of an exhaust from the turbine to generate steam, drives a steam turbine to obtain power, and cools the exhaust subjected to the heat recovery for separation into water and a CO 2 gas; a CO 2 compressor for compressing the CO 2 gas separated by the waste heat recovery equipment and pressure-feeding the compressed CO 2 gas to the cathode; and an oxygen supply system for supplying pure oxygen at a predetermined pressure to the CO 2 gas compressed by the CO 2 compressor, and wherein the gas treatment unit comprises: a gas cooling unit that cools the fuel gas obtained by the coal gasification furnace with the water separated by the waste heat recovery equipment, a desulfurization unit that desulfurizes the fuel gas cooled by the gas cooling unit to form the desired CO gas-containing gas, and a steam supply system for supplying steam, which has been obtained by cooling the gas by the gas cooling unit, to the CO gas-containing gas desulfurized by the desulfurization unit, and the power generating plant further comprising: a heating-up unit that supplies the cathode exhaust to the cathode gas containing pure oxygen and a CO 2 gas on an inlet side of the cathode to raise a temperature of the cathode gas.