Chemical storage of wind energy by renewable methanol production: Feasibility analysis using a multi-criteria decision matrix

Michael Matzen, Mahdi Alhajji and Yaşar Demirel

Energy, 2015, vol. 93, issue P1, 343-353

Abstract: This study is for the technoeconomic analysis of an integral facility consisting of wind energy-based electrolytic hydrogen production, bioethanol-based carbon dioxide capture and compression, and direct methanol synthesis. ASPEN Plus was used to simulate the facility producing 97.01 mt (metric tons) methanol/day using 138.37 mt CO2/day and 18.56 mt H2/day. A discounted cash flow diagram for the integral facility is used for the economic analysis at various hydrogen production costs and methanol selling prices. The feasibility analysis is based on a multi-criteria decision matrix consisting of economic and sustainability indicators comparing renewable and non-renewable methanol productions. The overall energy efficiency for the renewable methanol is around 58%. Fixation of carbon reduces the CO2 equivalent emission by around −1.05 CO2e/kg methanol. The electrolytic hydrogen production cost is the largest contributor to the economics of the integral facility. The feasibility analysis based on multi-criteria shows that renewable methanol production may be feasible.

Keywords: Electrolytic hydrogen; CO2 fixation; Methanol production; Technoeconomic analysis; Sustainability metrics; Multi-criteria decision matrix (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544215012530
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:energy:v:93:y:2015:i:p1:p:343-353

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2015.09.043

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

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