The most promising business cases for P2X deployment in renewable energy systems

High share of solar and wind energy challenges current energy systems as their production is intermittent and seasonal. Power-to-gas (P2G), or more widely, power-to-product (P2X) technologies producing synthetic fuels or other products have the potential to address the issue on intermittency and simultaneously contribute to the reduction of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Even though P2G technologies are available only a few commercial business cases have been implemented. The main focus in this paper has been on initial screening of several industry-integrated P2X concepts in order to identify the best business candidates for near term deployment in sectors that would also have high global impact. The work includes techno-economic feasibility analyses of specific system operations from operator's / investor's point of view in several market scenarios. As main results operational costs and incomes as well as profitability indicators (profit, EBIT, EBIT DA, payback time, pre-tax IRR, LCOF) are presented for selected business cases. As the paying capability seems to be the best in transportation sector, the most potential applications are determined by the utilisation possibilities of the side-streams from PtX processes and possibility to avoid electricity transmission costs as well as costs of CO2 or CO utilisation. In general, utilisation of at least 1-2 side products (heat, oxygen, steam) for additional revenue is typically required to enable profitability. Power-to-gas (P2G), or more widely, power-to-product (P2X) technologies producing synthetic gaseous fuels or other products have the potential to address the issue on intermittency and simultaneously contribute to the reduction of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. It seems that in current business conditions P2X technologies are on the brink of profitable commercial project appearance.