Project description
Game changer in renewable fuel strategy
Europe is a proven leader in creating climate neutrality. It is investing in realistic technologies that align action in key areas such as industrial policy and research. Through its Renewable Energy Directive, the European Commission has decreed that 10 percent of transport fuels will come from renewable sources by 2020, helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent. As a result, clean-burning fossil fuels like liquefied natural gas (LNG) and Bio-LNG are playing a pivotal role in Europe's renewable energy strategy. The MLU250 initiative provides a Micro Liquefaction Unit (MLU) that can treat methane streams to produce LNG as clean fuel for transportation. Its main advantages include significant cost efficiency, energy efficiency and remote accessibility.
Objective
EC through its Renewable Energy Directive mandates that 10% of the transport fuels in 2020 will come from renewable sources, focusing on a minimum 35% reduction of Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Towards that direction, LNG and Bio-LNG are expected to play a pivotal role in Europe’s comprehensive renewable fuel strategy for the transition to a low-carbon transport sector. Micro (Bio) LNG (production capacity 0.1-30 tons/day) refers to its direct use of (Bio) LNG in its liquid form as a transport fuel, contrary to its traditional regasification and subsequent introduction into the gas grid. Nevertheless, currently liquefaction is part of an integrated big scale distribution system, taking place in large scale facilities. This kind of facilities is highly CAPEX intensive, require long realization time (up to 72 months) and are only profitable at large scale (min. 2000 Nm3/h inlet gas flow). Thus, the market demands small liquefaction systems able to fulfil the gap among big producers and small consumers. Current competitors (mainly EU based) offer different single stage liquefaction solutions which result either to lower conversion efficiencies, higher energy consumption or require considerable higher inlet gas flow (>500 Nm3/h) and use of consumables. We provide a proprietary Micro Liquefaction Unit - MLU250 - able to treat methane streams for producing LNG as clean fuel for transportation with the following key advantages over Micro-Liquefaction systems using natural cooling media: - Cost-efficiency: “Plug and play”, modularized set up with 25% lower investment needs and accelerated construction schedules. - Energy efficiency: Low energy use for feedgas liquefaction without liquid N2 use, being from 7% up to 64% more efficient than alternatives. - Operators can easily add capacity up to 25 tons/d with small modular units (250 Nm3/h). - Remote accessibility: Enables monetization of small (bio)gas plants, impossible until now.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsliquid fuels
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energy
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfossil energynatural gas
- natural scienceschemical sciencesorganic chemistryaliphatic compounds
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
4814 RR BREDA
Netherlands
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.