Abstract
Innovative small-scale biogas plants, including upgrading solutions to affordable biomethane, are necessary to tap into the spatially distributed potentials of organic waste. This research identified and assessed novel small-scale technologies before market-entry maturity in the key process steps of the biomethane chain. We assessed technical, economic, and ecological indicators, and compared them to larger-scale references. The assessment included 7 pre-treatment, 13 digester, and 11 upgrading systems all at the small scale. We collected recently available data for Europe (2016–2018) for small-scale technologies (<200 m3; raw biogas per hour). In the literature we did not find such a comprehensive assessment of actual European small-scale innovative non-market-ready technologies for the production of biomethane. Several conclusions were drawn for each of the individual process steps in the biomethane chain, e.g., the economic indicator calculated for the upgrading technologies shows that the upgrading costs, for some of them, are already close to the larger-scale reference (about 1.5 €ct/kWh raw biogas). Furthermore, biomethane production is absolutely context-specific, which dramatically limits the traditional way to evaluate technologies. Hence, new ways of integration of the technologies plays a major role on their future R&D.
Highlights
Europe still has a high consumption of fossil fuels, resulting in a dependency on a limited number of countries and in high amounts of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) [1]
The EU heads of state or government agreed on a target of a renewable energy share of at least 27% in Europe by 2030 and EU countries have agreed on a target of a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% till 2030 compared with 1990 [1]
Technology developers which were working on small-scale pre-treatment, digestion, or upgrading technologies within the technology readiness level (TRL) level in the project focus (TRL 3–7)
Summary
Europe still has a high consumption of fossil fuels, resulting in a dependency on a limited number of countries and in high amounts of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) [1]. The EU heads of state or government agreed on a target of a renewable energy share of at least 27% in Europe by 2030 and EU countries have agreed on a target of a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% till 2030 compared with 1990 [1]. To reach these ambitious goals, the potentials of new, renewable, and clean energy sources must be identified and exploited. The introduction of renewable energies to the current energy system convey several new challenges, of which fluctuation in power production is one of the Energies 2019, 12, 1321; doi:10.3390/en12071321 www.mdpi.com/journal/energies
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