Attribution-guided planning for renewable energy generation bases: Synergistic design of ammonia co-firing and renewable energy integration

To balance the economic viability, operational stability, and carbon reduction objectives in renewable energy generation bases (REGB), the retrofitting strategy for thermal power units (TPUs) has garnered significant research attention. Ammonia co-firing in TPUs has emerged as an effective transitional solution. Recognizing the limitations of traditional optimization-based planning in fully explaining planning results and providing guidance, an attribution-guided low-carbon planning framework for integrated thermal-renewable energy systems is proposed in this paper. A high-fidelity CO2 emission model is developed, which incorporates the impacts of ammonia co-firing on turbine/boiler efficiency and auxiliary power consumption under flexible operations. Then, a path-integration-based attribution analysis method is proposed to quantifying technology contributions, enabling targeted optimization guidance for REGB. On this basis, self-consistent renewable energy management strategy with green electricity-driven ammonia production/power generation synergy is proposed in this paper. Case studies based on a realistic REGB in Northwest China shows that the proposed strategy achieves 2.48 % CO2 emission reduction while maintaining operational costs 2.20 % lower than the original optimal scheme.