New Technology for Efficient Electrochemical Production of Synthetic Natural Gas

Project Information

ElectroGas

Grant agreement ID: 866101

DOI

10.3030/866101

Project closed

EC signature date 27 May 2019

Start date 1 June 2019

End date 30 November 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

GSYF - EQUIPAMENTOS PARA ENERGIA, LDA
Portugal

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ElectroGas (New Technology for Efficient Electrochemical Production of Synthetic Natural Gas)

Reporting period: 2019-06-01 to 2019-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Electric grid storage continues to pose a major technical and economic pain. While the last decade has seen disruptive improvements in battery technology, even with current leading-edge solutions, large-scale applications of batteries are not economically feasible in many scenarios.
This incapacity to consume large amounts of excess electricity has been one of the biggest obstacles to high penetration of renewable energy systems, such as wind power.
Our CEO, José Campos Rodrigues, Electrical and Nuclear Engineer, has invented, patented and demonstrated a new technology for efficient electrochemical production of synthetic natural gas. This is considered a great energy storage due to rising prices for natural gas and the dependency from imports, and as energy carrier offers the advantages to be easily stored, transported and back-converted into energy. The European Patented Electrogas is a system that can be scaled from 1kW up to 1MW of power and will generate SNG using available non-dispatchable electricity.
Conventional techniques to produce SNG require high temperatures and pressures. The capacity of Electrogas to produce synthetic gas at low temperature and pressure is revolutionary for its technical and economic feasibility. Our consolidated market segments will exceed 5 billion € in 2020 (2 digits annual growth rate), including Synthetic Fuels, the Electricity storage market, grid management systems, Islands and other isolated systems and micro-grids.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the Feasibility Study we focused on finalizing specific technical studies and optimizations on our prototype, preparing it for a large-scale demonstration. At the same time we made use of the coach support to review and update our market assessment and sales strategy, as well as revisiting our pricing scheme and P&L for our business plan.
We used the project to prepare stategic documents to use in the process to raise a Seed Round of Venture Capital (1M€) that will allow us to implement our first 1MW unit in real life conditions. We have begun negotiations with 3 international energy companies which have VC departments and are interested in our technology.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Electrogas solves two of Europe’s problems: it enables higher penetration of renewable energy and locally produces SNG, increasing energy security and reducing imports. During the project we improved the operational performance of our prototype, making it ready to scale-up for a 1MW demonstrator, that we wish to implement in 2020-2021.
The main advantage of our proposed technology compared to other Power-to-Gas solutions available or under development is that does not require a CO2 autonomous source. The CO2 is locally produced through the oxidation of bio-coal (biomass) electrodes. Furthermore, this solution offers a valorisation of the oxygen produced by electrolysis. We have run several simulations on CAPEX and OPEX costs for variable number of operating hours and economies of scale. With Electrogas, SNG production is becomes price attractive, flexibly located, with no environment drawbacks and a short lead time to be implemented. The technology is scalable, ranging from the kW to MW power.

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