Decarbonization of methanol production - Techno-economic analysis of Power-to-Fuel process in a Hydrogen Valley

Abstract

The European Union set the decarbonization goals and green hydrogen can play a crucial role for the greenhouse gas emission reduction. Hydrogen Valleys can be pivotal for the hydrogen economy, by integrating the local green hydrogen (H2) production into the industrial sector. Thus, by means of the Power-to-Fuel approach H2 can be exploited for the synthetic fuel. This study aims at investigating the synthetic methanol (CH3OH) production process with recycled carbon dioxide (CO2) and green hydrogen in a Hydrogen Valley. Currently, industrial-scale methanol is produced from natural gas, where methane (CH4) reacts with H2O at high temperature and pressure. The green hydrogen can improve the long-term sustainability of this process, making the green methanol exploitable in the hard-to-abate sectors. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to evaluate a techno-economic analysis of various scenarios for the synthetic methanol production process in the Hydrogen Valley. This analysis has been carried out for different time periods: 2020, 2030, and 2050. The outcomes show that the current Levelized Cost of Methanol production ranges between 158.41 €/MWh and 227.69 €/MWh. In the long term, those values decrease to a range of 72.01 €/MWh to 97.05 €/MWh. The most suitable RES capacity scenarios have been derived along with the associated global investment costs. The best scenario in the short and medium term envisages 1 MW of on-shore wind plants and 1.5 MW of photovoltaic plants with a total investment cost of 4.10 M€ by 2020. In the long term, the best scenario foresees 2 MW of photovoltaic and 0.5 MW of on-shore wind. In so doing the 2050 investment cost is reduced to 1.62 M€.