Jussi Ikäheimo, Esa Pursiheimo, Juha Kiviluoma, Hannele Holttinen: The Role of power to liquids and biomass to liquids in a nearly renewable energy system, IET Renewable Power Generation · February 2019, DOI: 10.1049/iet-rpg.2018.5007

Abstract 

In order to achieve significant greenhouse gas emission reductions, decarbonisation of all economic sectors must be considered. Here we study the provision of renewable energy for the power, district heating, transport and industrial sectors in North European countries by integrating a large amount of wind and solar power into the system with power-to-gas and power-to-fuels plants enabling balancing and sector coupling. A global energy system model was soft-linked with a regional generation expansion and investment model for more comprehensive results for the future energy consuming sectors. The need for energy storages was estimated in case of a 100 % renewable energy supply for power and district heating sectors and high share of renewable energy supply for the transport sector. The total capacity of synthetic natural gas, hydrogen, synthetic liquid fuel and heat storages varied between 37–51 TWh (1.7–2.3 % of energy demand) depending on scenario, when emergency stocks were not included. The cost of energy storages remained small compared to the total system cost. 71–148 % increase in electricity generation, compared to the 2010 level, was required. The cost of synthetic liquid fuel remained significantly higher than estimated fossil alternative cost.