Leveling Intermittent Renewable Energy Production Through Biomass Gasification-Based Hybrid Systems

Abstract

The increased use of intermittent renewable power in the United States is forcing utilities to manage increasingly complex supply and demand interactions. This paper evaluates biomass pathways for hydrogen production and how they can be integrated with renewable resources to improve the efficiency, reliability, dispatchability, and cost of other renewable technologies. Two hybrid concepts were analyzed that involve coproduction of gaseous hydrogen and electric power from thermochemical biorefineries. Both of the concepts analyzed share the basic idea of combining intermittent wind-generated electricity with a biomass gasification plant. The systems were studied in detail for process feasibility and economic performance. The best performing system was estimated to produce hydrogen at a cost of $1.67/kg. The proposed hybrid systems seek to either fill energy shortfalls by supplying hydrogen to a peaking natural gas turbine or to absorb excess renewable power during low-demand hours. Direct leveling of intermittent renewable electricity production was proposed utilizing either an indirectly heated biomass gasifier or a directly heated biomass gasifier. The indirect gasification concepts studied were found to be cost competitive in cases where value is placed on controlling carbon emissions. A carbon tax in the range of $26–40 per metric ton of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emission makes the systems studied cost competitive with steam methane reforming (SMR) to produce hydrogen. The direct gasification concept studied replaces the air separation unit (ASU) with an electrolyzer bank and is unlikely to be cost competitive due to high capital costs. Based on a direct replacement of the ASU with electrolyzers, hydrogen can be produced for $0.27 premium per kilogram. Additionally, if a nonrenewable, grid-mix electricity is used, the hybrid system is found to be a net CO2e emitter.

Leveling Intermittent Renewable Energy Production Through Biomass Gasification-Based Hybrid Systems

“…Detailed information about the ASPEN Plus models can be found in Ref. [10]. With indirectly and directly heated baseline cases in place, each plant was modified to incorporate the proposed hybrid concepts.…”

Pyrolytic Conversion of Biomass Residues to Gaseous Fuels for Electricity Generation

“…It should be noted that the gaseous products of combustion will need to be treated and filtered for items such as any particulate present in the gas stream and utilize a condenser to eliminate water vapor from entering the pyrolysis system. In addition to these rough estimates, Braun et al [39] have performed a study on the detailed economics of producing hydrogen fuels from biomass syngas and the net carbon emissions of different processes.…”

A Novel Combined Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Algorithm MPPT Control Method for Multiple Photovoltaic Arrays at Partial Shading

“…The second function, as can be seen from the formula (5), has several local peaks and a global peak. Using these functions, the experiments aim to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed GAAPSO algorithm y = y = -20e ^+ 20 (4) (5) Here, X and Y axes show the number of particles and the optimization error, respectively. Figure 2 shows the comparison between three algorithms in terms of optimization error.…”

“…Many such alternate energy sources like wind energy, solar PV power, solar thermal energy, geothermal energy, biomass, and hydrogen production are their advanced development stage due to which is playing an important role as long-lasting, clean, and low maintenance energy source. For this reason, the number of studies on renewable generating system is rapidly increasing [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. The solar PV market in the whole world has been growing spectacularly over the last years and is forecast confirm this trend in the coming years [5].…”

“…For this reason, the number of studies on renewable generating system is rapidly increasing [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. The solar PV market in the whole world has been growing spectacularly over the last years and is forecast confirm this trend in the coming years [5]. The PV power system consists of solar PV cell, dc/dc converter, dc/ac inverter, storage batteries, and controller, etc., which directly converts the electric energy from solar radiation, can be stand-alone or distributed or grid-connected [2].…”