Towards a dramatic reduction in the European Natural Gas consumption: Italy as a case study

Smart energy systems refer to the use of advanced technologies and systems to optimize the generation, distribution, and consumption of energy. The main goal of such a concept is to create an intelligent energy infrastructure based mostly on sustainable solutions namely renewable generations. Notwithstanding, renewable energy resources by their nature are unprogrammable. The main challenge is to balance properly the demand and supply curve To do so, various interventions should be employed to improve the reliability of the system (namely: real-time energy consumption monitoring to optimize energy efficiency and integration of energy storage systems). The final outcome is significant energy saving as well as cost reduction and cutting carbon footprint. Hydrogen is mostly refers to as ‘future fuel’ due to its marvellous properties. It is an energy carrier that is characterized by water and heat as byproducts of combustion. Furthermore, it can be used in a variety of applications, including transportation, power generation, and industrial processes. It can be used in fuel cells to power electric vehicles or blended directly with natural gas to reduce GHG emissions. The current work investigates the potential role of Hydrogen inside a smart energy system on a community scale. Various contributions are defined for Hydrogen inside a community featuring power to gas, power to vehicles or blending into NG. The layout is composed of hybrid electric, thermal and cooling power generation which is integrated with storage systems. At the end of the simulation, various scenarios are compared to each other in terms of energy performance, economic indicators and environmental impacts to carry out the best suitable option.

Section: The Smart Energy Communitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential Role of green hydrogen as an energy carrier in smart energy system communities

Mojtahed,

Ciancio,

Sgaramella

2023

“…The Italian energy system model applied in the present work has been built and validated in Ref. [6]. In Table 1, the comparison between EnergyPLAN model and actual data has been reported.…”

Section: Energyplan Model and Economic Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conversely, the reduction of gas consumption can be rapidly achieved through the energy system decarbonisation [6]. In countries like Italy, which base most of their electricity production on natural gas, the installation of renewable energy sources (RES) allows a direct reduction in national gas consumption.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Power-to-Gas strategy could reduce national Natural Gas consumption over the energy crisis period

Pastore¹,

Mojtahed²,

Santoli³

2022

Self Cite

Europe is facing an energy crisis caused by the dramatic rise in gas prices. This situation is damaging the European economy and urgent measures to reduce gas consumption are crucial in the short term. This paper aims to analyse the potential contribution of the Power-to-Gas strategy to reduce the Italian consumption of Natural Gas (NG) in the context of the current energy crisis. To do so, the Italian energy system has been modelled by means the EnergyPLAN software. The electrolysers’ installation in the Italian energy systems has been simulated in combination with different levels of additional RES installation. The hydrogen production and the NG abatement potential have been calculated in each simulated scenario. Furthermore, the Natural Gas Abatement Cost (NGAC) has been assessed. By installing 1.5 GW of electrolysers, along with an additional 25 GW of renewables, about 140 ktonH2/year can be produced only by exploiting the RES excess. The total NG reduction due to both the RES generation and the hydrogen injection is more than 60 TWh/year. The NG abatement cost varies between 45 and 54 €/MWh. At current gas prices, it is therefore extremely cheaper to invest in a drastic reduction of natural gas than to buy the same amount of gas on the wholesale market. Therefore, the current energy crisis can be an opportunity to accelerate the energy transition process. The proposed solutions allow a substantial reduction in gas consumption with the consequent reduction in emissions and the country’s energy dependency.

“…The shift to distributed energy systems is crucial for the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) integration, ensuring a great flexibility [4]. Hydrogen is a valuable element that can be easily integrated into distributed systems [5]. Green hydrogen has the potential to significantly reduce dependence on fossil fuels and help achieve global climate objectives [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decarbonization of methanol production - Techno-economic analysis of Power-to-Fuel process in a Hydrogen Valley

Ciancio,

Mojtahed,

Sgaramella

2023

The European Union set the decarbonization goals and green hydrogen can play a crucial role for the greenhouse gas emission reduction. Hydrogen Valleys can be pivotal for the hydrogen economy, by integrating the local green hydrogen (H2) production into the industrial sector. Thus, by means of the Power-to-Fuel approach H2 can be exploited for the synthetic fuel. This study aims at investigating the synthetic methanol (CH3OH) production process with recycled carbon dioxide (CO2) and green hydrogen in a Hydrogen Valley. Currently, industrial-scale methanol is produced from natural gas, where methane (CH4) reacts with H2O at high temperature and pressure. The green hydrogen can improve the long-term sustainability of this process, making the green methanol exploitable in the hard-to-abate sectors. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to evaluate a techno-economic analysis of various scenarios for the synthetic methanol production process in the Hydrogen Valley. This analysis has been carried out for different time periods: 2020, 2030, and 2050. The outcomes show that the current Levelized Cost of Methanol production ranges between 158.41 €/MWh and 227.69 €/MWh. In the long term, those values decrease to a range of 72.01 €/MWh to 97.05 €/MWh. The most suitable RES capacity scenarios have been derived along with the associated global investment costs. The best scenario in the short and medium term envisages 1 MW of on-shore wind plants and 1.5 MW of photovoltaic plants with a total investment cost of 4.10 M€ by 2020. In the long term, the best scenario foresees 2 MW of photovoltaic and 0.5 MW of on-shore wind. In so doing the 2050 investment cost is reduced to 1.62 M€.