Wind energy can be converted into methane gas and stored in the Danish natural gas grid. As an added bonus, the biogas plants eliminate their carbon emissions using a new method that has been tested in a recently completed project.<\/p>\n
Wind turbines currently provide around 40 per cent of Danish electricity. Looking five years into the future, they will be able to supply more than half of Denmark\u2019s electricity consumption. Thus, wind energy is without comparison the biggest contributor by far to a sustainable transition of the Danish energy sector. However, if we are to achieve the goal of Denmark becoming fossil fuel independent by 2050, we will have to find more ways to store the electricity from wind turbines.<\/p>\n
This is the focus of the project MeGA-StoRE project (Methane Gas Storage for Renewable Energy), where DTU\u2014in collaboration with Lemvig Biogas Plant\u2014has tested a new method that basically involves using the biogas plant to convert wind energy into methane gas, which can subsequently be transferred to the natural gas grid.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst and foremost, Megastore is an electricity storage project,\u201d says Lars Alb\u00e6k Kristensen, Director at Lemvig Biogas Plant.<\/p>\n
The first step in the process is to convert the surplus wind turbine energy into hydrogen using electrocatalysis.\u00a0 In the next step, hydrogen is allowed to react with CO\u2082 in a reactor at the biogas plant to produce methane gas and water.<\/p>\n
Although present in large quantities in the atmosphere, CO\u2082 is difficult to collect. However, the CO\u2082 can be removed at the biogas plant itself, where it would otherwise be emitted as a waste product. Biogas namely consists of methane and CO\u2082.
\nThe CO\u2082 content of the biogas is removed at the plant in order to produce the pure methane, which can then be added to the natural gas supply. Biogas is thus an excellent source of CO\u2082, explains Lars Alb\u00e6k Kristensen:<\/p>\n
\u201cBiogas contains 35 per cent CO\u2082 of an extremely high purity. And if we can store the surplus wind power energy in a carbon source such as methane, it’ll be just like with oil: 100 per cent of what we put into the pipe, comes out the other end.\u201d\u00a0 So if we use the hydrogen (which is made from surplus wind turbine electricity, ed.) to convert CO\u2082 into methane, we will have a carbon-based energy storage facility. And very close to 100 per cent of the CO2 is converted into chemically pure methane. We already have access to the infrastructure in the natural gas grid where we can store the energy. That\u2019s the brilliance of the idea,\u201d says Lars Alb\u00e6k Kristensen. In other words, the experiment at Lemvig Biogas Plant is paving the way for efficient storage of wind energy in the natural gas network\u2014and in the underground gas storage facilities, which contain sufficient gas to cover Denmark\u2019s total gas consumption for several months.<\/p>\n This is clear evidence that biogas plants can play a key role in fossil-free energy supply\u2014which is essential, says Professor Per M\u00f8ller from DTU Mechanical Engineering, who is behind the Megastore project:<\/p>\n \u201cPut a little crudely, with the help of biogas we are using the Danish fields to collect carbon from the atmosphere by means of photosynthesis\u2014and with the help of wind energy, we can increase this yield by 50 per cent.\u00a0 Wind energy has already come a long way in Denmark. We\u2019ve made the world sit up and take note\u2014we\u2019re the ones who came up with the solution.\u00a0 The next goal is to store the electricity so that in the future we don\u2019t just sell wind turbines, but the complete system,” says Per M\u00f8ller, alluding to the fact that Denmark in future would also be able to export this storage technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wind energy can be converted into methane gas and stored in the Danish natural gas grid. As an added bonus, the biogas plants eliminate their carbon emissions using a new method that has been tested in a recently completed project. Wind turbines currently provide around 40 per cent of Danish electricity. Looking five years into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572,5571],"tags":[5838,10744],"supplier":[12124,11306],"class_list":["post-34247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","category-co2-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-carboncapture","supplier-lemvig-biogas-plant","supplier-technical-university-of-denmark-dtu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34247"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=34247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSo in contrast to the typical method where biogas is cleansed of CO\u2082<\/sub> and the methane then transferred to the natural gas grid, the Lemvig Biogas Plant project has succeeded in capturing the CO2<\/sub>, allowing it to react with hydrogen. Not only did this utilize all the carbon in the biogas, it also increased methane production by approximately 50 per cent. The test facility at Lemvig Biogas Plant produced 24 m3 of biogas over a 24-hour period. The project must now be scaled up and will continue in the years ahead in a project at NGF Nature Energy on Funen, where the goal is to render the process even cleaner and more profitable.<\/p>\n