The energy sector in the European market has been changing significantly over the last years. European Union (EU) energy strategy includes the EU low-carbon roadmap milestone, which indicates for 2020, a 20% reduction in carbon emissions, and a 20% EU-wide share for renewables, and by 2030 a 40% reduction in carbon emissions and 30% EU-wide share for renewables. The increased renewable energy sources (RES) penetration and their intermittent energy production have led to the emerging need for energy storage technologies. Especially in the European energy market, large-scale energy balancing with sustainable technologies with product flexibility and cost-effective operation are being investigated. The carbon capture and utilization (CCU) concept, as a means for low-carbon sustainable industries, is integrated in the energy storage technologies. The present paper addresses the integration of power to fuel concept in the energy storage sector with simultaneous emission reduction. Grid management, the scale, and the efficient operation of electrolyzers are the basis for the implementation of Power to Fuel technology. The use of surplus and/or low-cost electricity via water electrolysis to commute captured CO2 from industrial plants to versatile energy carriers such as methane and methanol is being investigated in the present paper. Shadow operation of fossil fuel power plants under minimum load conditions leads to optimized energy dispatch of the power plants and provides product flexibility in terms of electricity, grid services, and chemical production. The produced fuels can be used in highly efficient and well-established power systems and further used in the transportation sector or for covering heat demands. The energy efficiency of the different processes is presented and a comparison is made in terms of cost effective energy storage solutions via the simultaneous grid management optimization, the reduction of carbon dioxide, and the production of valuable chemicals. The cross-sectorial concept of the Power to Fuel is presented for Steel and Power industry for the case of methane and methanol production. A review of the U.S. and European markets is made for the application of Power to Fuel.
Fossil fuel power plants, as combined cycle plants (CCGT), will increasingly have to shift their role from providing base-load power to providing fluctuating back-up power to control and stabilize the grid, but they also have to be able to run at the highest possible efficiency. Combined Heat and Power generation could be a smart solution to overcome the flexibility required to a modern power plant, this work investigates different layout possibilities allowing to increase the overall efficiency through the heat recover from the hot flue gasses after the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) of a CCGT. The flue gas (FG) cooling aims to recover not only the sensible heat but also the latent heat by condensing the water content. One possible solution couples a heat pump to the flue gas condenser in order to increase the temperature at which the recovered heat is supplied, moreover the evaluated layout has to comply with the requirement of a minimum temperature before entering the stack.
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