In the present paper, the results of an activity performed in the ongoing EU project, CESAR (CO2 Enhanced Separation and Recovery) are presented. In the CESAR project five different baseline power-plants are considered. These consist of two lignite- and two bituminous-coal fired plants while the fifth is fuelled by natural gas. Part of the design work relates to identifying the benefits attainable through appropriate integration of flue-gas cooling to these baseline power-plants. It is shown that the approximate reductions in capture-cost for the studied (optimal) cases are of the order of 20% for the lignite-coal cases, 10% for the bituminous coal cases and 13% for the natural gas case using MEA as solvent. The reductions are basically due to the inclusion of pre-cooling. However, a positive effect of inter-cooling was also found for all the coal cases, while a negative cost effect was found for the natural gas case. For piperazine as solvent the positive effect of cooling was much more pronounced than for MEA and especially the effect of inter-cooling. (C) 2011 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.