ALEN OXY-PTG

ALEN OXY-PTG

Renewable energy storage through recycled CO2, PtG and Oxy-fuel combustion

      The general objective of the project is to validate in the laboratory the hybridization between Power-to-Gas energy storage technology and oxyfuel CO2 capture technology. This milestone would mean moving from the current maturity level of TRL 2 technology (formulated technology application) to TRL 4 level (component validation and disposition in laboratory environment). The project comprises the design, commissioning, operation and control of the laboratory facility, which mainly consist of a photovoltaic solar panel, an electrolyzer, a fixed-bed methanization reactor and an oxyfuel burner.

      The experimental plant use three PV panels of 335 Wp each (model RMS72-6-335P Risen Energy) coupled with 2 bateries of 250 Ah. The electricity from the PV panels is used in a PEM electrolyzer of 400 W (model GREENMH2 Hart) able to produced 1 l/min of H2 at 6 bar. The hydrogen is stored in a tank of 70 l of capacity, to be later used in the methanation plant. The latter uses a fixed-bed reactor filled with Ruthenium catalyst (see more details of the methanation plant in the MERCURIA project). The synthetic natural gas can be consumed in the oxy-fuel burner, in an atmosphere of 70% CO2 – 30% O2. The thermal power of the burner is 5,3 kW.

Results
  • An experimental plant for  the concept combining Power to Gas and Oxy-fuel combustion was designed, commissioned and operated.

  • Experimental campaigns were carried out to test the PV panels, electrolyzer and methanation plant. The models developed show good agreement between simulations and experimental results. Currently, experimental test of the oxy-fuel burner are ongoing.

  • A simplified methodology was developed to measure the main socio-economic impacts of future investments in innovative energy technologies such as Power to Gas. The main impacts of the deployment of this technology on a territory have been analyzed, from a circular economy perspective, in terms of volume of investment, employment generation, and CO2 capture.
Completed 100%

Project info

16 Sept. 2018 – 15 Sept. 2020

Total budget: 69,260.36 €

Principal investigator
Luis M. Romeo (luismi@unizar.es)
University of Zaragoza

This project received funding from from the programme “Programa Operativo FEDER Aragón 2014-2020” of the Aragonese Government under project LMP134_18.