Economic feasibility of power-to-gas integrated with biomass fired CHP plant

Power-to-gas (PtG) is recognised as potential option to benefit from periods of low electricity prices. Temporary low prices will probably be more common in the future due to increasing share of solar and wind energy in power systems. When producing methane by electrolysis and synthesis with CO2, significant amounts of oxygen and steam are produced as by-products. It is possible to store oxygen and utilise it in biomass fired or co-fired combined heat and power (CHP) plants to temporarily increase production during peak prices. Together with utilisation of the by-product steam, integration of PtG with biomass fired CHP plant offers an attractive concept for future energy system. In this paper, the feasibility of this concept is analysed in several market scenarios. As main results, annual operational costs, profits and payback times are presented. In addition, the impacts on CO2 emissions are discussed. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.