Hydro-methane and methanol combined production from hydroelectricity and biomass: Thermo-economic analysis in Paraguay

• We investigate H2/O2 production from large hydraulic plant by water electrolysis.
• We produce methanol and hydro-methane from H2/O2 obtained.
• We investigate two different configurations of the plant.
• We perform a thermo-economic analysis for three scenarios in Paraguay.
• We find plants optimal size using a time-dependent thermo-economic approach.

A thermo-economic analysis regarding large scale hydro-methane and methanol production from renewable sources (biomass and renewable electricity) is performed.The study is carried out investigating hydrogen and oxygen generation by water electrolysis, mainly employing the hydraulic energy produced from the 14 GW Itaipu Binacional Plant, owned by Paraguay and Brazil. Oxygen is employed in biomass gasification to synthesize methanol; the significant amount of CO2 separated in the process is mixed with hydrogen produced by electrolysis in chemical reactors to produce hydro-methane.Hydro-methane is employed to supply natural gas vehicles in Paraguay, methanol is sold to Brazil, that is the largest consumer in South America.The analysis is performed employing time-dependent hydraulic energy related to the water that would normally not be used by the plant, named “spilled energy”, when available; in the remaining periods, electricity is acquired at higher cost by the national grid.For the different plant lay-outs, a thermo-economic analysis has been performed employing two different software, one for the design point and one for the time-dependent one entire year optimization, since spilled energy is strongly variable throughout the year.Optimal sizes for the generation plants have been determined, investigating the influence of electricity cost, size and plant configuration.