Economic appraisal of Power-to-Liquid Fischer-Tropsch plants exploiting renewable electricity, green hydrogen, and CO2 from biogas in Europe

The present work analyses the techno-economic potential of Power-to-Liquid routes to synthesize Fischer-Tropsch paraffin waxes for the chemical sector. The Fischer-Tropsch production unit is supplied with hydrogen produced by electrolysis and CO2 from biogas upgrading. In the analysis, 17 preferential locations were identified in Germany and Italy, where a flow of 1 t/h of carbon dioxide was ensured. For each location, the available flow of CO2 and the capacity factors for both wind and solar PV were estimated. A metaheuristic-based approach was used to identify the cost-optimal process design of the proposed system. Accordingly, the sizes of the hydrogen storage, electrolyzer, PV field, and wind park were evaluated. The analysis studied the possibility of having different percentage of electricity coming from the electric grid, going from full-grid to full-RES configurations. Results show that the lowest cost of Fischer-Tropsch wax production is 6.00 €/kg at full-grid operation and 25.1 €/kg for the full-RES solution. Wind availability has a key role in lowering the wax cost.