IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v45y2015icp207-218.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Power to liquid and power to gas: An option for the German Energiewende

Author

Listed:
  • Varone, Alberto
  • Ferrari, Michele

Abstract

The large-scale deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) is an important aspect of decarbonising the energy supply, and represents a key part of the German Energiewende. However, significantly increasing the share of renewable power in the energy mix implies coping with the natural intermittency of RES like wind and solar. RES development also does not directly address non-electric energy needs such as fuels for transportation and industry feedstock, which are presently relying on fossil fuels. Therefore, the conversion of surplus renewable electricity (RES-E) into the more convenient form of a liquid or gas (power-to-liquid and power-to-gas) could help offset RES intermittency while providing a diverse mix of energy carriers. If recycled CO2 is used in the fuel synthesis process, overall emissions can be greatly reduced. This paper aims to sketch the possible contribution of RES-E combined with power-to-gas (PtG) and power-to-liquid (PtL) schemes in the 2050 German energy system, by modelling an increase in installed renewable power. Different scenarios are laid out and compared, and the results are utilised in a basic economic assessment of the fuel production cost for an hypothetical power-to-liquid plant.

Suggested Citation

  • Varone, Alberto & Ferrari, Michele, 2015. "Power to liquid and power to gas: An option for the German Energiewende," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 207-218.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:45:y:2015:i:c:p:207-218
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2015.01.049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032115000593
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rser.2015.01.049?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Agrafiotis, Christos & Roeb, Martin & Sattler, Christian, 2015. "A review on solar thermal syngas production via redox pair-based water/carbon dioxide splitting thermochemical cycles," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 254-285.
    2. Scholz, Reinhard & Beckmann, Michael & Pieper, Christoph & Muster, Marc & Weber, Roman, 2014. "Considerations on providing the energy needs using exclusively renewable sources: Energiewende in Germany," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 109-125.
    3. Henning, Hans-Martin & Palzer, Andreas, 2014. "A comprehensive model for the German electricity and heat sector in a future energy system with a dominant contribution from renewable energy technologies—Part I: Methodology," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 1003-1018.
    4. Graves, Christopher & Ebbesen, Sune D. & Mogensen, Mogens & Lackner, Klaus S., 2011. "Sustainable hydrocarbon fuels by recycling CO2 and H2O with renewable or nuclear energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-23, January.
    5. Schmid, Eva & Pahle, Michael & Knopf, Brigitte, 2013. "Renewable electricity generation in Germany: A meta-analysis of mitigation scenarios," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1151-1163.
    6. Yang, Liangcheng & Ge, Xumeng & Wan, Caixia & Yu, Fei & Li, Yebo, 2014. "Progress and perspectives in converting biogas to transportation fuels," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1133-1152.
    7. Palzer, Andreas & Henning, Hans-Martin, 2014. "A comprehensive model for the German electricity and heat sector in a future energy system with a dominant contribution from renewable energy technologies – Part II: Results," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 1019-1034.
    8. Hong, Jongsup & Chaudhry, Gunaranjan & Brisson, J.G. & Field, Randall & Gazzino, Marco & Ghoniem, Ahmed F., 2009. "Analysis of oxy-fuel combustion power cycle utilizing a pressurized coal combustor," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 1332-1340.
    9. Becker, W.L. & Braun, R.J. & Penev, M. & Melaina, M., 2012. "Production of Fischer–Tropsch liquid fuels from high temperature solid oxide co-electrolysis units," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 99-115.
    10. Catherine Yap Co, 2012. "US Trade in Advanced Technology Products," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 16-30, February.
    11. Edenhofer, Ottmar & Hirth, Lion & Knopf, Brigitte & Pahle, Michael & Schlömer, Steffen & Schmid, Eva & Ueckerdt, Falko, 2013. "On the economics of renewable energy sources," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(S1), pages 12-23.
    12. Leung, Dennis Y.C. & Caramanna, Giorgio & Maroto-Valer, M. Mercedes, 2014. "An overview of current status of carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 426-443.
    13. Ludig, Sylvie & Haller, Markus & Schmid, Eva & Bauer, Nico, 2011. "Fluctuating renewables in a long-term climate change mitigation strategy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 6674-6685.
    14. Pregger, Thomas & Nitsch, Joachim & Naegler, Tobias, 2013. "Long-term scenarios and strategies for the deployment of renewable energies in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 350-360.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hansen, Kenneth & Mathiesen, Brian Vad & Skov, Iva Ridjan, 2019. "Full energy system transition towards 100% renewable energy in Germany in 2050," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1-13.
    2. Heinrichs, Heidi Ursula & Markewitz, Peter, 2017. "Long-term impacts of a coal phase-out in Germany as part of a greenhouse gas mitigation strategy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 234-246.
    3. Østergaard, P.A. & Lund, H. & Thellufsen, J.Z. & Sorknæs, P. & Mathiesen, B.V., 2022. "Review and validation of EnergyPLAN," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    4. Maruf, Md. Nasimul Islam, 2021. "Open model-based analysis of a 100% renewable and sector-coupled energy system–The case of Germany in 2050," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    5. Pellegrino, Sandro & Lanzini, Andrea & Leone, Pierluigi, 2017. "Greening the gas network – The need for modelling the distributed injection of alternative fuels," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 266-286.
    6. Bartholdsen, Hans-Karl & Eidens, Anna & Löffler, Konstantin & Seehaus, Frederik & Wejda, Felix & Burandt, Thorsten & Oei, Pao-Yu & Kemfert, Claudia & Hirschhausen, Christian von, 2019. "Pathways for Germany's Low-Carbon Energy Transformation Towards 2050," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 12(15), pages 1-33.
    7. Lopion, Peter & Markewitz, Peter & Robinius, Martin & Stolten, Detlef, 2018. "A review of current challenges and trends in energy systems modeling," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 156-166.
    8. Schmid, Eva & Knopf, Brigitte, 2015. "Quantifying the long-term economic benefits of European electricity system integration," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 260-269.
    9. Tom Brown & Mirko Schäfer & Martin Greiner, 2019. "Sectoral Interactions as Carbon Dioxide Emissions Approach Zero in a Highly-Renewable European Energy System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-16, March.
    10. Geoffrey J. Blanford & Christoph Weissbart, 2019. "A Framework for Modeling the Dynamics of Power Markets – The EU-REGEN Model," ifo Working Paper Series 307, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    11. Zerrahn, Alexander & Schill, Wolf-Peter, 2017. "Long-run power storage requirements for high shares of renewables: review and a new model," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 1518-1534.
    12. Brown, T. & Schlachtberger, D. & Kies, A. & Schramm, S. & Greiner, M., 2018. "Synergies of sector coupling and transmission reinforcement in a cost-optimised, highly renewable European energy system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 720-739.
    13. Guidolin, Mariangela & Guseo, Renato, 2016. "The German energy transition: Modeling competition and substitution between nuclear power and Renewable Energy Technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1498-1504.
    14. Blanco, Herib & Faaij, André, 2018. "A review at the role of storage in energy systems with a focus on Power to Gas and long-term storage," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 1049-1086.
    15. Creutzig, Felix & Goldschmidt, Jan Christoph & Lehmann, Paul & Schmid, Eva & von Blücher, Felix & Breyer, Christian & Fernandez, Blanca & Jakob, Michael & Knopf, Brigitte & Lohrey, Steffen & Susca, Ti, 2014. "Catching two European birds with one renewable stone: Mitigating climate change and Eurozone crisis by an energy transition," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1015-1028.
    16. Dillig, Marius & Jung, Manuel & Karl, Jürgen, 2016. "The impact of renewables on electricity prices in Germany – An estimation based on historic spot prices in the years 2011–2013," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 7-15.
    17. Blanco, Herib & Nijs, Wouter & Ruf, Johannes & Faaij, André, 2018. "Potential of Power-to-Methane in the EU energy transition to a low carbon system using cost optimization," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 323-340.
    18. Schreiner, Lena & Madlener, Reinhard, 2022. "Investing in power grid infrastructure as a flexibility option: A DSGE assessment for Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    19. Nallapaneni Manoj Kumar & Aneesh A. Chand & Maria Malvoni & Kushal A. Prasad & Kabir A. Mamun & F.R. Islam & Shauhrat S. Chopra, 2020. "Distributed Energy Resources and the Application of AI, IoT, and Blockchain in Smart Grids," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-42, November.
    20. Knopf, Brigitte & Nahmmacher, Paul & Schmid, Eva, 2015. "The European renewable energy target for 2030 – An impact assessment of the electricity sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 50-60.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:45:y:2015:i:c:p:207-218. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.