Chemical Engineering January 2019 - 14

Newsfront
Power-to-X:
Batteries Not Required
As renewable energy becomes increasingly available (and less expensive), Europeans are
looking to Power-to-X as a way to couple the energy, CPI and transportation sectors
thyssenkrupp
CO2-emitting
industry
Hydrogen storage
& reconversion
Renewable energy
production
Electrolytic
hydrogen plant
Integrated hydrogen
& methanol plant
Integrated hydrogen &
ammonia/urea complex
Chemical industry
FIGURE 1. Hydrogen - produced by the electrolysis of
water using carbon-free electricity from solar and wind
generators - is the key for all power-to-x technologies
G
ermany's energy transition
(Energiewende) from fossilbased
fuels to renewables,
such as solar and wind, is
sparking a revolution that may change
the way companies in the chemical
process industries (CPI) operate in the
not-to-distant future. With more than
33% of its power already supplied by
renewables, and a goal to be virtually
greenhouse-gas (GHG) neutral by
2050 (as outlined in the Climate Action
Plan 2050, adopted November 2016),
Germany is leading the charge, with
many European countries joining the
effort to meet the E.U.'s GHG targets
set out in the Paris Agreement.
With the increased emphasis on
carbon-free electricity from solar and
wind power generation, many different
technologies are being investigated to
make this fluctuating electricity source
more reliable, which is essential for
industrial processes. Some of the options
being actively investigated are
14
power-to-x (PTX) technologies, which
are ways to store and utilize excess
renewable electricity in the form of
a gas or liquid (X) that can be easily
transported for use in transportation
and heating, and as feedstock for
producing bulk chemicals (Figure 1).
In 2016, the Federal Ministry of Education
and Research (BMBF; Bonn,
Germany; www.bmbf.de) introduced
four " Kopernikus Projects for the Energy
Transition. " One of the projects selected
was PTX, which is coordinated
by RWTH Aachen University, Forschungszentrum
Jülich, and Dechema e.V.
(Frankfurt am Main; www.dechema.
de). The major project focuses on the
storage of excess power into other energy
carriers, with €30 million in funding
from the BMBF for the first of three
development phases.
Today, there are about 35 PTX projects
in Germany, according to the
German Energy Agency (dena; Berlin;
www.dena.de), which maintains a
Natural gas grid
Integrated hydrogen
& SNG plant
Refineries
H2
Mobility
Consumers
(power & gas)
Farms
database of the projects as part of its
Power-to-Gas (PTG) Strategy Platform
(www.powertogas.info). Dena established
the PTG Strategy Platform in
2011 in order for partners from industry,
associations and science to pool
their diverse expertise and experience.
The core objective is to establish PTG
as a reliable, cost-efficient and largescale
multi-purpose option at least by
the beginning of the years 2020-2025,
with at least 1,000 MW of electrolysis
power installed in Germany.
Power-to-gas: hydrogen is key
Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen
is a key step in almost all PTX
schemes. Although the technology
has been around for decades, water
electrolysis only accounts for about
5% of the world's H2 production,
with the remaining bulk supplied from
fossil feedstock, according to Manfred
Baldauf, head of research group
Electrochemistry, Siemens AG (ErlanCHEMICAL
ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
JANUARY 2019
Fuel
Methanol
CO2
Ammonia
Fertilizer
SNG
H2
http://www.powertogas.info http://www.bmbf.de http://www.dechema http://www.dena.de http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering January 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering January 2019
