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Australia has a wealth of both renewable and fossil energy resources. It also has strong and economically significant energy export relationships with other countries, exporting coal and liquefied natural gas. As the world transitions to lower carbon sources for its primary energy consumption, Australia is ideally placed to provide the next generat...
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... is blessed with a diverse range of energy resources, both fossil and renewable, which have considerable physical overlap as shown in Figure 2 for the case of solar and natural gas. The aim of the Concentrating Solar Fuels (CSF) Roadmap project, funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), was to evaluate the current status of CSF technologies, identify appropriate market opportunities, and delineate a roadmap to enable Australia to become a world leader in CSF production. ...
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... world has significant expertise in traditional gasification processes, and several research groups have adapted it to solar thermal-based systems working at laboratory scale. Pilot-scale demonstrations are limited to two systems at 150 kW ( Figure 12) and 500 kW with on-sun operations of tens of hours. ...
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... recent oil price movements and the range in projections observed, it is difficult to pick the price projections of one study over another. Medium and low projections will be used for this study, as shown in Figure 20, which have included recent price drops and expected greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction measures ( ). These projections have determined the diesel sale price assumed for this study (see Section 5.1.3). ...
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... prices tend to fluctuate with the oil price. This can be seen by comparing the historical gas price index with the oil price index in Figure 21. We developed a formula linking the liquefied natural gas (LNG) price to the oil price because of the high degree of correlation. ...
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... developed a formula linking the liquefied natural gas (LNG) price to the oil price because of the high degree of correlation. There is no global gas price, as there is with oil; rather, there are prices for the major markets, which are shown in Figure 22. In the future, as more LNG terminals come online, the gas markets should converge due to a greater degree of inter-regional trade. ...
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... once LNG facilities are brought online in the United States, the price should fall (or stay low) again for gas. This is because the United States will be a low-cost supplier (blue line in Figure 22), given the low price of gas in their domestic market. ...
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... these commodities represent export opportunities for Australia, their future price will be linked to an Asian LNG price. The IEA's World Energy Outlook (WEO) has provided projections out to the year 2040 of the LNG price in Japan, as shown in Figure 23. The forecast prices are lower than previous WEOs; this reflects the downturn in the oil price since the last projections were made. ...
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... is a globally traded commodity, with 29 million tonnes shipped annually, although the majority of methanol is used where it is produced (Methanol Institute, 2011). Historical Asian Posted Contract Prices for methanol, converted to an index for comparison purposes, are shown in Figure 24. The methanol price follows both the oil and gas price, because gas is the feedstock used to make methanol, and the share of feedstock in the final cost is 31% (American Methanol Institute, 1991). ...
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... mentioned above, the gas price follows the oil price. Figure 24 shows that the recent drop in oil price has also reduced the methanol price, but not to the same extent. The prices of methanol and gas are highly correlated. ...
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... is the largest importer and user of methanol; therefore, the projected methanol price needs to be appropriate for them. Given that the global commodity price of methanol follows the oil price, the projected methanol price is based on the oil prices shown in Figure 20, rather than the Japanese LNG price. The projected methanol prices used in this study are shown in Figure 25. ...
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... that the global commodity price of methanol follows the oil price, the projected methanol price is based on the oil prices shown in Figure 20, rather than the Japanese LNG price. The projected methanol prices used in this study are shown in Figure 25. ...
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... the hydrogen is assumed to be exported to Asia, the Japanese LNG price trajectory is the most appropriate to use for future gas prices. The projected prices are shown in Figure 26, where the average price is shown as a blue line, and the 'new policies' and 'low oil price' LNG price trajectories form the upper and lower bounds. These projections assume that the capital and operating components of the price of hydrogen production remain fixed over time. ...
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... projected conventionally produced ammonia price begins in 2015 using the current price data. The resultant trajectories are shown in Figure 27. ...
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... appropriate diesel price to use for comparison purposes is the wholesale price (at refinery gate). Projected wholesale diesel prices are shown in Figure 28, where these projections have been made using the oil prices in Figure 20. ...
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... CSF, in which water is split to produce hydrogen, would produce no GHG emissions. However, solar hydrogen production is relatively expensive, and thus only features in projections of future transport fuel use in Australia in modelling scenarios that feature deep emissions cuts Fossil-Jet (and high carbon prices), such as those shown in Figure 31 and Figure 32 ( ClimateWorks_Australia et al., 2014). ...
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... Korea is the world's second-largest importer of LNG, with consumption expected to grow by 1.7% per year, mainly for electricity generation, to reduce GHG emissions in line with the country's long-term energy plan. Despite its large reliance on LNG, it only receives 2% of its supply from Australia ( Figure 42), but recently signed three major LNG contracts to secure supply from here. Once full production is complete, South Korea is expected receive 25% of its LNG supply from Australia, which should make Australia one of its major suppliers (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2014). ...
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... is the price that local users of gas, such as electricity generation plants, would have to pay ). These are different from the LNG prices shown in Figure 23, because they represent local prices rather than exported prices. Local prices are appropriate as a feedstock price, since that is what a local industrial buyer would pay for their gas supply. ...
Citations
... Depending on the geographical locations and type of the biomass, different pricing scenarios can be considered for the price of the feedstock: Scenario 1: negative price of biomass: this is associated with the cost of collection, package and transport from the source to the location of the plant that is covered by the owner of the biomass e.g. landlord or government subsidy; Scenario 2: Free biomass, which can be considered for the condition in which the process is localised and is installed on the land with available biomass resource; Scenario 3: purchase biomass at current price of 2$/GJ according to the Australian roadmap for renewable and solar thermal energy [49], for collecting and transport of biomass to be paid by the owner of the plant; Scenario 4: natural gas as a feedstock, which provides a condition to conduct a back-to-back comparison with the other similar systems; and Scenario 5: natural gas as a feedstock while the projected cost is considered to be increased to 20 and 30 $/GJ in the future. Fig. 17 shows that the lowest levelised cost of energy for the system is observed for the first scenario (the price of biomass is negative), which means that the final price of the syngas is 11.46 $/GJ to 20.38 $/GJ for fuel prices of − 10 $/GJ to − 2 $/GJ, respectively. ...
A detailed thermochemical analysis is carried out to assess the energetic performance of a proposed process based on liquid metal slurry in a chemical looping gasification process. The system is designed to produce synthetic gas and generate electricity from low-grade (waste) solid carbon black collected from a thermal plasma plant. Indium oxide-indium slurry mixture was used as an oxygen carrier. The thermodynamic models showed that oxygen availability in the fuel reactor is the determining parameter that controls the operating mode of the system. The molar ratio of liquid metal to feedstock (LMO/C) and the steam to feedstock (S/C) are identified the key factors that regulate the level of exergy partitioned in the gas products. Generating steam by heat-recovery from the vitiated air (exhausted from the air reactor), is a proof that the process is partially self-sustained - capable of generating electricity to drive the pumps and the air compressors in the process. At LMO/C = 0.1 and S/C = 1.5, the largest exergy is partitioned in the synthetic gas and a syngas quality (molar ratio of H2: CO) of ~1.55 is achieved. The highest syngas quality was achievable, however, at the cost of unreacted steam, which increased the exergy destruction of the plant. The peak performance of the system is achieved when the (fuel and air) reactors operated at near-isothermal conditions. At these conditions, the exergy destruction between reactors is minimised and the power production in the power block is maximised. Based on indicative available price indexes, a techno-economic analysis evaluated the economic viability and the levelised cost of energy for a different price for various scenarios. It showed that the proposed system offers a competitive LCOE against several existing energy and hydrogen production systems.
... biomass) -to methanol using Cu/ZnO/Al 2 O 3 catalyst, as an intermediate for gasoline production in the presence of zeolite (ZSM-5) catalyst at 350-360°C and 19-23 bar [23]. A major drawback of this process is the high durene content in the product which requires subsequent treatment to achieve high octane gasoline [24]. Therefore, this conversion route is not recommended due to the strict laws vis-á-vis air toxicity [25]. ...
... Further improvement in algae production pathways, resulting in 50% cost reduction, can decrease the LCOF to 1.9 AUD/L (1.45 USD/ L). Reviewing the technological advancement in hydrogen production through PV-electrolysis predicts a drop in the levelised cost of hydrogen in the near future [24]. A 50% reduction in the cost of hydrogen would lead to an LCOF of 1.7 AUD/L (1.29 USD/L). ...
The use of concentrated solar thermal (CST) to drive endothermic processes, such as supercritical water gasification (SCWG) is an attractive option for green fuel production, and has been demonstrated at laboratory scale. However, there is a lack of understanding of the system-level challenges and economic feasibility of such a technological route. As such, this work is focused on the techno-economic analysis of algae-to-liquid fuel production via solar-driven SCWG-reforming and Fischer–Tropsch (FT) processes. A detailed steady-state physical model of the plant is developed in Aspen Plus software. Algae slurry, with 15.2 wt.% concentration of biomass, is considered as the feedstock. The total solar-thermal power delivered to the on-sun gasification and reforming reactors is assumed to be 50 MWth. There is an on-site syngas storage acting as a buffer between the intermittent SCWG-reforming and continuous FT units. The heat exchanger network is optimised for maximum syngas production, and thus liquid fuels including gasoline and diesel. The techno-economic evaluation of the system is carried out for an nth plant design for commercial units considering a plant lifetime of 30 years. The total cost of the plant includes capital investment, (fixed and variable) operating costs as well as a penalty cost for CO₂ emissions. With 2016 as the basis year for costing, the proposed system has a levelised cost of fuel (LCOF) as low as 3.2 AUD/L (2.44 USD/L) of gasoline equivalent (at a solar multiple of 3.5 and 15 h syngas storage capacity) with the total capital investment of ~160 million AUD, producing 7600 tonnes of fuel per year (∼145 bbl/day) and achieving a capacity factor (CF) of ~70%. The sensitivity analysis of economic variables indicates that the feedstock cost, here algae, is the most influential factor, followed by the discount rate, and the capital costs of the FT, the syngas storage and the receiver unit. Although the estimated LCOF in this study seems to be relatively high compared to fossil fuel-based petroleum products, this technology has the prospect of becoming economically competitive in the near future based on the anticipated decrease in the cost of large-scale algae production and CST/FT plant scale-up.
... The solar multiple for the six, nine and twelve hours of storage CST is 2.36, 2.53 and 2.95 respectively. The solar multiples for the CST plants are suggested from[116]. The available electricity generated by CST plant with a specific solar multiple in a simulation hour can be calculated by SM tech is the solar multiple of the simulated CST plant. ...
This thesis explores the least cost combination of renewable generation technolo- gies, transmission interconnectors and storage capacity in different supply and de- mand scenarios in the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) regions. Aus- tralia faced high retail electricity prices due to investment in the electricity distri- bution system, significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions (144% compared to 1990 levels) from electricity sector. In the same time peak demand decreased in most states because of energy conservation, on-site generation and industry evolu- tion. Future plans like reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26% by 2030, use of energy storage (e.g. batteries, concentrated solar thermal power system), increase use of renewables will require a reshape and rethinking of the current energy sys- tem. Although the high renewable penetration system in the NEM regions has been widely discussed, there is lack of co-optimization of the renewable technologies, transmission expansion and storage capacity together. Besides, most studies use historical demand data when optimizing the system, without a detailed assumption of the demand changed by various factors. This study contributes to the current research by building in a depth demand model based on social behaviour, buildings and ambient temperature to analyse the possible changes on demand. A Genetic Algorithm (GA) together with an electric- ity dispatch simulation model at hourly temporal resolution was used in this study. The benefit of this approach consists in co-optimization the renewable generation technologies, transmission interconnectors and storage capacity in the NEM system in different renewable mix and demand scenarios.
The use of concentrated solar thermal (CST) to drive endothermic processes, such as supercrit-ical water gasification (SCWG) is an attractive route to green fuels production, and has been demonstrated at laboratory scale. However, there is a lack of understanding of the system-level challenges and economic feasibility of such a technological route. As such, this work is focused on the techno-economic analysis of algae-to-liquid fuel production via solar-driven SCWG-reforming and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) processes. A detailed steady-state physical model of the plant is developed in Aspen Plus software. Algae slurry, with 15.2 wt.% concentration of biomass, is considered as the feedstock. The total solar-thermal power delivered to the on-sun gasification and reforming reactors is assumed to be 50 MW th. There is an on-site syngas storage acting as a buffer between the intermittent SCWG-reforming and continuous FT units. The heat exchanger network is optimised for maximum syngas production, and thus liquid fuels including gasoline and diesel. The techno-economic evaluation of the system is carried out for an n th plant design for commercial units considering a plant lifetime of 30 years. The total cost of the plant includes capital investment, (fixed and variable) operating costs as well as a penalty cost for CO 2 emissions. With 2016 as the basis year for costing, the proposed system has a levelised cost of fuel (LCOF) as low as 3.2 AUD/L (2.44 USD/L) of gasoline equivalent (at a solar multiple of 3.5 and 15 h syngas storage capacity) with the total capital investment of ∼160 million AUD, producing 7600 tonnes of fuel per year (∼145 bbl/day) and achieving a capacity factor (CF) of ∼70%. The sensitivity analysis of economic variables indicates that the feedstock cost, here algae, is the most influential factor, followed by the discount rate, the capital cost of the FT, syngas storage and receiver unit. Although the estimated LCOF in this study seems to be relatively high compared to fossil fuel-based petroleum products, this technology has the prospect of becoming economically competitive in the near future based on the anticipated decrease in the cost of large-scale algae production and CST/FT plant scale-up.
Australia has one of the world's best solar resources and well-established, growing centres for research in concentrating solar thermal power (CSTP) and concentrating solar fuels (CSF). However, the commercial deployment of CSTP and CSF in Australia is still in its infancy. To address this shortfall, several government incentive schemes have been established to help to promote the commercialisation and deployment of solar technologies. This funding includes a number of initiatives to further the research and development of technologies for CSTP, including the establishment of the Australian Solar Thermal Research Initiative (ASTRI). ASTRI has a dual role: to develop technologies that led to reduced cost, and at the same time to develop human capital through the recruitment of PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. Several companies, in partnership with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), have also conducted feasibility studies into early stage deployment of CSTP technologies, and a number of demonstration projects have been developed in both pilot and commercial environments. Studies of future energy technology supply mixes clearly indicate that in excess of 30% of zero emission system with firm capacity and dispatchability characteristics is required for system adequacy. This is CSTP's target market and the amount achieved will be determined by the ability of commercial proponents to lower their costs and be more competitive that fossil plus carbon capture solutions in particular.
