(587g) Storage of Excess Wind Energy and Utilization of Waste Flue Gas CO2 through Sustainable Methanol Production

As a larger production of wind energy and other types of renewable energies are predicted in the future, utilizing the excess energy from these sustainable energy sources can increase the energy efficiency of the wind farm by making good use of all the electricity produced. Moreover, CO2 emissions from industry, that contribute to climate change, are also an increasing problem that requires a solution. In this study, we present a novel concept, which aims at solving these two problems by integrating excess energy from wind farms and CO2 from flue gas into an innovative production process using methanol as an energy storage/carrier. The excess wind energy is used to produce hydrogen through water electrolysis and CO2 is captured from flue gas, e.g. from the cement industry. Compared with the traditional methanol production which heavily relies on natural gas as its source of hydrogen, carbon, and energy, this process has a smaller environmental footprint. The novelty of our concept relies on shifting the focus from operating a methanol production plant towards valorizing the excess renewable energy, which is wasted otherwise and considering methanol as a value-added product (as opposed to Szima et al. 2018). Therefore, the plant capacity of 30 000 metric tons per year is scaled based on the quantity of the excess wind energy of the largest wind farm in Denmark. This capacity is significantly lower than those of traditional methanol production plants, which range up to 1.9 million metric tons per year (Ferrostaal, 2015). This adds a constraint to improve the process integration efficiency of the proposed concept. Hence, a techno-economic analysis is performed to investigate the overall feasibility of the proposed concept by identifying key design decisions and essential cost drivers. As results obtained show high sensitivity to both electricity and methanol prices, an uncertainty analysis was conducted in order to determine their effects on the profitability metrics of the proposed novel process. A sustainability analysis is complementarily carried out to emphasize the added environmental benefits of the proposed concept in comparison to the traditional methanol production process.

Reference:

Szima, Szabolcs, and Calin-Cristian Cormos. "Improving methanol synthesis from carbon-free H2 and captured CO2: A techno-economic and environmental evaluation." Journal of CO2 Utilization 24 (2018): 555-563.

Ferrostaal. “M5000 Methanol Plant” from www.ferrostaal.com/en/top-references-ferrostaal/m5000-methanol-plant/ (2015), visited 12.04.2019.