Power to Gas-biomass oxycombustion hybrid system: Energy integration and potential applications

A promising hybridization which increases the chances of deployment of Power to Gas technology is found in the synergy with oxycombustion of biomass. This study assesses the efficiency of an energy integrated system under different sizes and potential applications. District heating and industrial processes are revealed as the most suitable potential applications for this hybrid technology. Global efficiency of the combined system may be increased through thermal energy integration. The relative increment of efficiency achieved for those designs which avoid the requirement of an air separation unit and for those which completely consumed the generated CO2, are 24.5% and 29.7% respectively. A 2 MWth district heating case study is also analysed, revealing that 81.2% of the total available heat from the PtG-oxy system could be integrated raising the global efficiency up to 78.7% at the adequate operational point. Further 'full-fuel-cycle' analysis will be required prior to decide the interest of the concept under a specific scenario in comparison to other available energy storage technologies. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.