The regeneration heat duty (Qreg, MJ/kg CO2) which consists of solvent heating energy (Qsh, MJ/kg CO2), solvent vaporization energy (Qvap, MJ/kg CO2), and desorption energy (Qdes, MJ/kg CO2), is a critical parameter in evaluating the performance of a solvent for postcombustion CO2 capture. In this study, Qreg of CO2 desorption from rich monoethanolamine (MEA)‐methanol solvent was experimentally evaluated in a pilot‐plant stripper packed with Sulzer packing BX500, Mellapale packing Y500 and Pall rings 16 × 16. And a comparison of Qreg between MEA‐methanol and aqueous MEA solvent was performed to evaluate the potential for MEA‐methanol's application in industrial CO2 capture process. Also effects of several operating parameters of the stripper consists of rich CO2 loading (0.25–0.52 mol/mol), rich solvent flow rate (21.2–51.4 L/h), rich solvent temperature (40–60°C) and regeneration temperature (68–74°C) on the regeneration performance of the stripper were studied. It was found that Qreg of MEA‐methanol solvent was lower than aqueous MEA solvent (especially Qdes) and Qreg was sensitive to all the four parameters. Also the results obtained in this work showed that the stripper performance of Sulzer BX500 packing was better than Mellapale Y500 packing and Pall rings 16 × 16 packing was the worst. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 36: 838–844, 2017