Power-to-Methane to Integrate Renewable Generation in Urban Energy Districts

Abstract

The deployment of distributed energy systems must take place paying attention to the self-consumption of renewable generation. Innovative sector coupling strategies can play that role linking local electricity and gas grids. The present work aims to evaluate the energy and economic feasibility of the Power-to-Methane strategy application in urban energy districts. A residential cluster was considered as a case study. Two PV configurations have been applied to evaluate the Substitute Natural Gas (SNG) production under different renewable excess conditions. Thereafter, the Power-to-Methane strategy was implemented by varying the system’s size. Some significant configurations have been compared to each other in terms of energy and economics. Beyond a certain threshold limit, an increase in the photovoltaic size slightly enhances the effectively self-consumed energy. The Power-to-Methane strategy can exploit all the renewable excess once the system is properly sized, almost doubling the potential energy consumption reduction compared to the PV system alone. The SNG production cost is between 100 and 200 EUR/MWh in most configurations, which is competitive with the high natural gas prices on the European market. Therefore, decentralised SNG production can reduce the households’ annual expenditures and it can mitigate the energy poverty conditions over the current energy crisis period.

A potential coupling of reforming and electrolysis for producing renewable hydrogen from landfill gas

“…To ensure these thermal powers are equal, a MATLAB code, which provided the quota of LFG to be fed to CHP and the quota to be fed to the upgrading and reforming section, was run. The LCOH was calculated using the following equation [13,15].…”

“…Furthermore, a switch from the sectorial point of view to a holistic one, for what concerns energy sectors, is needed, and can be achieved via the Smart Energy Systems (SES) approach. Such an approach is based on the combination and coordination of the electricity, thermal and gas grid, in order to utilize the synergies between them, to maximize efficiency and reduce overall costs [1,[12][13][14][15][16][17] One of the key drivers of the energy transition is hydrogen produced by RES, known as green hydrogen, which can be exploited in several ways, such as blending with natural gas in the gas grid, with a volume concentration as high as 20%, without any significant risk [16], with a consequent reduction of the natural gas consumption [18]. Furthermore, hydrogen can be used in high-temperature industrial processes, in the chemical industry for ammonia and methanol production, in the mobility sector by direct utilization in fuel cell vehicles or by synthesis of electro-fuel to allow its use in existing vehicles.…”

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

“…The Power-to-X approach envisages the renewable electricity conversion into other energy carriers [13], such as a fuel like methanol. This conversion system is therefore a way to integrate the excess electricity produced by the RES, which in the future is expected to be increasingly numerous and being able to integrate their production in the most efficient way possible will be one of the technological challenges of the near future [14].…”

Potential Role of green hydrogen as an energy carrier in smart energy system communities

“…The concept of energy distribution systems has changed gravely in the past decade [1,2]. Inside the European Union, the target is to reduce GHG emissions by 15 % in 2030.…”