Techno-economic and Life Cycle Assessment of methane production via biogas upgrading and power to gas technology

Pierre Collet, Eglantine Flottes, Alain Favre, Ludovic Raynal, Hélène Pierre, Sandra Capela and Carlos Peregrina

Applied Energy, 2017, vol. 192, issue C, 282-295

Abstract: To decrease the use of fossil fuels and face the energetic demand, the integration of renewable energy is a necessary step. Part of this renewable energy can be supplied by the production of electricity from photovoltaic panels and windfarms. The massive use of these intermittent energies will lead to overproduction periods, and there is consequently a need to convert this surplus of electricity into a storable form of energy. Power-to-gas (PtG) technology consists in using electricity to convert water into hydrogen by electrolysis, and then to synthetize methane from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Techno-economic and Life Cycle Assessment of methane production via the combination of anaerobic digestion and PtG technology have been applied to sewage sludge valorization. Process studies and equipment design have been addressed considering already available technologies. Sensitivity analyses have been done on biogas upgrading technologies, electricity prices, annual operation time and composition of the electricity mix with also a comparison between PtG and direct injection. It appears that the more the electricity is expensive, the longer the operation time of the methanation process must be to be competitive with injection of methane from biogas. Reduction of electricity consumption of the electrolysis step decreases production costs. Even if the current context does not feature adapted conditions to ensure an economically viable chain, the evolution of the energetic context in the next few years as well as the expected technological improvements will contribute to overall cost reduction. From an environmental point of view, continuous PtG generates more greenhouse gases than direct injection, but intermittent operation with use of renewable electricity can significantly reduce GHG emissions. From an endpoint impacts perspective, impact from continuous PtG are higher than biogas upgrading, but much lower than fossil energy. Future development of low electricity consumption of the electrolysis process, and integration of renewable credits from CO2 valorization can increase the competitiveness of this technology.

Keywords: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); Power-to-Gas; Methane; CO2 valorization; Energy storage; Production costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (86)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261916312909
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:192:y:2017:i:c:p:282-295

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.08.181

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().