Final Report Summary - DYNAMIS (Towards Hydrogen and Electricity Production with Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage)
The purpose of the DYNAMIS project was to develop, within a sustainable framework, large scale hydrogen production from decarbonised fossil fuels including CO2 geological storage. The project responded to the growing interest of creating commercially exploitable facilities that produce hydrogen and electricity from fossil fuels, with the resulting CO2 being either stored or, eventually, used for enhanced oil and gas recovery.
DYNAMIS was organised under five technical subprojects, related to power plant and capture technology, product gases handling,CO2 storage options, planning and pre-engineering of plants and societal anchorage of the technology . The targets that were deemed achievable for practical operation by 2012 were the following:
1. plant power generation in the 400 MW class using flow cycles of hydrogen operating gas turbines in the 250 to 300 MW class;
2. hydrogen production corresponding to between 25 and 50 MW with the flexibility to adjust the plant output between 0 and 100 % hydrogen;
3. hydrogen production in accordance with the specifications of a European infrastructure;
4. 90 % CO2 capture rate;
5. 50 % capture cost reduction based on a current level of EUR 50 to 60 cost per tonne of CO2 captured.
DYNAMIS undertook to qualify and generalise methodologies used to perform technology development work and to rank and validate alternative options. It also addressed challenges associated with scale-up when using multiprocessing schemes and related to the integration of the proposal to existing plants and systems. A risk assessment study of the candidate 'Hypogen' system was carried out in order to reduce uncertainties.
DYNAMIS examined thoroughly alternative plant solutions so as to obtain practically and commercially feasible concepts with, at least, acceptable operability, reliability and maintainability. Technical and economical aspects of the produced gases handling were also evaluated. The proposals were further verified through the use of four case study sites. The non-technical parameters which were analysed referred to market perspectives and social, legal and regulatory issues.
The selected technologies and the main process steps in cases of hard coal and lignite fired plants are summarised subsequently:
1. oxygen production, for which the only commercially viable technology was cryogenic air separation;
2. synthesis gas production via coal or lignite gasification, through the use of oxygen-blown gasifiers;
3. CO and water vapour conversion to CO2 and hydrogen by shift reaction using two catalytic beds;
4. acid gas removal (AGR), i.e. desulphurisation and CO2 separation, using Selexol physical solvent;
5. compression of CO2 for transportation to the storage site;
6. hydrogen purification using Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA);
7. power generation in a gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC), for which F-class turbines with a high-hydrogen fuel were selected.
In case of plants using natural gas a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) was selected, with CO2 being captured in parallel to a steam reforming plant for hydrogen production. F-class gas turbines (GT) were considered preferable for a condensing plant, whereas for a combined heat and power plant they may not always form the optimal choice.
The produced hydrogen and CO2 had to meet certain quality requirements necessary for their distribution and use or for their transport and storage. CO2 quality recommendations were mainly related to the transportation process and safety issues. The geological storage of the final product did not seem to pose additional requirements; however this remains to be scientifically verified. Regarding hydrogen, efforts were made towards establishing a plausible purity level while addressing end user requirements, as those were estimated based on forecasts for probable demands in the transports and industry sectors. It was proved that special care should be taken for the amount of the inert components and of CO.
In cases of both coal or lignite and gas-fired plants a large heat demand could offer additional income from low temperature heat sources. The option was tested in practice, showing a reduction in electricity efficiency accompanied with an increase in the overall efficiency of the plants.
CO2 produced from fossil fuels was captured using a physical absorption process with specially designed absorption chemicals. Since CO2 for coal-fired plants was produced at high pressure and concentration the process was relatively easy, while reducing the pressure in stages sufficed to recover the gas and recycle the solvent. In gas-fired plants CO2 was produced at a much lower pressure and density and was captured using amines, with increased energy requirements for its release. The capture rate target was feasible in both cases.
CO2 could be stored in almost all deep saline formations confined by appropriate permeability barriers and Europe appears to have significant storage capacity, based on previous projects analysis. Increased effort was devoted on injection strategies modelling, so as to achieve higher injection rates than those applied today; however there remained need for further work towards this direction after the project completion.
It was necessary to prove that the environmental benefits of DYNAMIS outweighed the impacts in order for the technology to be exploited at a large scale. An environmental impact assessment (EIA) was carried out for that purpose and proved that no significant issues were raised for the environment due to the technology application. Nevertheless, further work would be useful regarding the environmental properties of the amines used in gas-fired plants. It was also advised to perform risk analyses in cases of power plants located in densely populated areas, as well as in order to estimate potential leakage characteristics and effects in all cases. Finally, research regarding the marine environmental impacts was proposed in cases of off-shore storage.
It was estimated during the project that between 80 and 120 large scale CO2 capture and storage projects could be operational in Europe by 2030, depending on the applied international policy. Various scenarios were examined regarding the operational cost of such projects to reasonably represent the variability of parameters which may influence the investment viability. The conclusion was that debt finance with a debt service cover ratio of around 1.5 could just be achievable for the cases under consideration; however this was only a rough estimate that could fluctuate depending on each case data, details and demands.
DYNAMIS was organised under five technical subprojects, related to power plant and capture technology, product gases handling,CO2 storage options, planning and pre-engineering of plants and societal anchorage of the technology . The targets that were deemed achievable for practical operation by 2012 were the following:
1. plant power generation in the 400 MW class using flow cycles of hydrogen operating gas turbines in the 250 to 300 MW class;
2. hydrogen production corresponding to between 25 and 50 MW with the flexibility to adjust the plant output between 0 and 100 % hydrogen;
3. hydrogen production in accordance with the specifications of a European infrastructure;
4. 90 % CO2 capture rate;
5. 50 % capture cost reduction based on a current level of EUR 50 to 60 cost per tonne of CO2 captured.
DYNAMIS undertook to qualify and generalise methodologies used to perform technology development work and to rank and validate alternative options. It also addressed challenges associated with scale-up when using multiprocessing schemes and related to the integration of the proposal to existing plants and systems. A risk assessment study of the candidate 'Hypogen' system was carried out in order to reduce uncertainties.
DYNAMIS examined thoroughly alternative plant solutions so as to obtain practically and commercially feasible concepts with, at least, acceptable operability, reliability and maintainability. Technical and economical aspects of the produced gases handling were also evaluated. The proposals were further verified through the use of four case study sites. The non-technical parameters which were analysed referred to market perspectives and social, legal and regulatory issues.
The selected technologies and the main process steps in cases of hard coal and lignite fired plants are summarised subsequently:
1. oxygen production, for which the only commercially viable technology was cryogenic air separation;
2. synthesis gas production via coal or lignite gasification, through the use of oxygen-blown gasifiers;
3. CO and water vapour conversion to CO2 and hydrogen by shift reaction using two catalytic beds;
4. acid gas removal (AGR), i.e. desulphurisation and CO2 separation, using Selexol physical solvent;
5. compression of CO2 for transportation to the storage site;
6. hydrogen purification using Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA);
7. power generation in a gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC), for which F-class turbines with a high-hydrogen fuel were selected.
In case of plants using natural gas a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) was selected, with CO2 being captured in parallel to a steam reforming plant for hydrogen production. F-class gas turbines (GT) were considered preferable for a condensing plant, whereas for a combined heat and power plant they may not always form the optimal choice.
The produced hydrogen and CO2 had to meet certain quality requirements necessary for their distribution and use or for their transport and storage. CO2 quality recommendations were mainly related to the transportation process and safety issues. The geological storage of the final product did not seem to pose additional requirements; however this remains to be scientifically verified. Regarding hydrogen, efforts were made towards establishing a plausible purity level while addressing end user requirements, as those were estimated based on forecasts for probable demands in the transports and industry sectors. It was proved that special care should be taken for the amount of the inert components and of CO.
In cases of both coal or lignite and gas-fired plants a large heat demand could offer additional income from low temperature heat sources. The option was tested in practice, showing a reduction in electricity efficiency accompanied with an increase in the overall efficiency of the plants.
CO2 produced from fossil fuels was captured using a physical absorption process with specially designed absorption chemicals. Since CO2 for coal-fired plants was produced at high pressure and concentration the process was relatively easy, while reducing the pressure in stages sufficed to recover the gas and recycle the solvent. In gas-fired plants CO2 was produced at a much lower pressure and density and was captured using amines, with increased energy requirements for its release. The capture rate target was feasible in both cases.
CO2 could be stored in almost all deep saline formations confined by appropriate permeability barriers and Europe appears to have significant storage capacity, based on previous projects analysis. Increased effort was devoted on injection strategies modelling, so as to achieve higher injection rates than those applied today; however there remained need for further work towards this direction after the project completion.
It was necessary to prove that the environmental benefits of DYNAMIS outweighed the impacts in order for the technology to be exploited at a large scale. An environmental impact assessment (EIA) was carried out for that purpose and proved that no significant issues were raised for the environment due to the technology application. Nevertheless, further work would be useful regarding the environmental properties of the amines used in gas-fired plants. It was also advised to perform risk analyses in cases of power plants located in densely populated areas, as well as in order to estimate potential leakage characteristics and effects in all cases. Finally, research regarding the marine environmental impacts was proposed in cases of off-shore storage.
It was estimated during the project that between 80 and 120 large scale CO2 capture and storage projects could be operational in Europe by 2030, depending on the applied international policy. Various scenarios were examined regarding the operational cost of such projects to reasonably represent the variability of parameters which may influence the investment viability. The conclusion was that debt finance with a debt service cover ratio of around 1.5 could just be achievable for the cases under consideration; however this was only a rough estimate that could fluctuate depending on each case data, details and demands.
