•A double effect absorption heat transformer is introduced into the CO2 capture unit.•Innovatively apply transcritical CO2 power generation system to CO2 capture unit.•Low grade temperature steam is upgraded by DAHT to match solvent regeneration.•A portion of required electrical energy for CCU is compensated by CO2 power generation.•Energy, exergy and economic evaluations of the proposed system are presented. This paper deals with a double effect heat transformer-aided carbon dioxide capture unit with transcritical carbon dioxide power generation for a coal-fired steam power plant. In the proposed system a double absorption heat transformer is used to upgrade low energy level steam into high-level and drive carbon dioxide capture unit. Also, a transcritical carbon dioxide power generation that is utilized captured carbon dioxide to generate power and compensate a portion of the required electrical energy of the carbon dioxide capture unit. This system avoids extracting high-grade temperature steam extracted from high-pressure stage of steam turbine and hence overall thermal efficiency of power plant increases compared to the reference systems. Comprehensive thermodynamic and economic evaluations are conducted to reveal the feasibility of the presented system. The results show that the evaporator temperature has the highest effect on net power output. An increase of 10 K in the evaporator temperature from 80 °C to 90 °C, leads to a reduction of 4.9% in generated power. However, a 50% increase in carbon dioxide capture rate from 40% to 90%, leads to a rise of 23.4% in the exergy destruction rate. Moreover, the payback period is approximately 4 years and 6 months.