TY - GEN
T1 - Techno-economic evaluation and optimization of solar-driven power-to-chemical systems with thermal, electricity and product storage
AU - Wang, Ligang
AU - Pérez-Fortes, Mar
AU - Liao, Xun
AU - Diethelm, Stefan
AU - Van herle, Jan
AU - Maréchal, François
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Power-to-chemicals driven by solar energy for methane, methanol and gasoline are evaluated thermo-economically for three locations in Europe with high solar irradiation, and with two daily product demands and seasonal product storage. The electricity sources considered are molten-salt solar power tower technology (MSTP), photovoltaic (PV) with daily electricity storage, and the electrical grid as complementary technology to satisfy the targeted daily product demand. A bi-level optimization employs (i) mixed-integer linear programming at the lower level with heat and mass integration for optimal sizing of technologies and utilities, and (ii) genetic algorithms at the upper level for optimizing the involved technologies themselves, e.g., MSTP. Particularly, since the capital investment of MSPT contributes significantly to the levelized product cost, the optimization of the heliostat field is coupled for a potential cost reduction. The results show that (1) high local solar irradiation to ensure long annual operation hours of MSPT and PV is the most important aspect for the location selection; (2) high thermal storage capacity for ensuring long full-load operating hours of MSPT is beneficial for reducing levelized production cost; (3) PV is generally not preferred as a power source, due to the short operating hours and expensive electricity storage; (4) the plant size affects significantly the final product cost, indicating that a compact, small-scale system is far too expensive; (5) the levelized methanol and gasoline product costs per kg are lower than that of hydrogen and methane and less affected by the plant size as well as the annual power contribution of MSPT; (6) comparing with the market prices for all the three chemicals considered, solar fuels can hardly be competitive in terms of cost in the near future.
AB - Power-to-chemicals driven by solar energy for methane, methanol and gasoline are evaluated thermo-economically for three locations in Europe with high solar irradiation, and with two daily product demands and seasonal product storage. The electricity sources considered are molten-salt solar power tower technology (MSTP), photovoltaic (PV) with daily electricity storage, and the electrical grid as complementary technology to satisfy the targeted daily product demand. A bi-level optimization employs (i) mixed-integer linear programming at the lower level with heat and mass integration for optimal sizing of technologies and utilities, and (ii) genetic algorithms at the upper level for optimizing the involved technologies themselves, e.g., MSTP. Particularly, since the capital investment of MSPT contributes significantly to the levelized product cost, the optimization of the heliostat field is coupled for a potential cost reduction. The results show that (1) high local solar irradiation to ensure long annual operation hours of MSPT and PV is the most important aspect for the location selection; (2) high thermal storage capacity for ensuring long full-load operating hours of MSPT is beneficial for reducing levelized production cost; (3) PV is generally not preferred as a power source, due to the short operating hours and expensive electricity storage; (4) the plant size affects significantly the final product cost, indicating that a compact, small-scale system is far too expensive; (5) the levelized methanol and gasoline product costs per kg are lower than that of hydrogen and methane and less affected by the plant size as well as the annual power contribution of MSPT; (6) comparing with the market prices for all the three chemicals considered, solar fuels can hardly be competitive in terms of cost in the near future.
KW - Concentrated solar power
KW - Energy storage
KW - Photovoltaic
KW - Power-to-gas/liquid
KW - Solid-oxide electrolyzer
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064151427&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85064151427
T3 - ECOS 2018 - Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems
BT - ECOS 2018 - Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems
PB - University of Minho
T2 - 31st International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems, ECOS 2018
Y2 - 17 June 2018 through 21 June 2018
ER -