The interactive potential analysis web tool can be used to calculate both quantity potentials and requirements of electricity, water and CO₂ for different PtX products. For this, many relevant parameters can be adjusted, including a variety of countries, year, PtX-product, supply/demand and sources of electricitiy, water and CO₂. Based on this selection, the corresponding potential for a selected PtX-product is displayed. The tool was developed within the BMBF funded projects Kopernikus P2X (FKZ: 03SFK2W0-2) and NAMOSYN (FKZ: 03SF0566A).
The potential analysis tool developed by DECHEMA e.V. serves to structure and make transparent the debate about "the potential of PtX technologies". The temporal development of different relevant factors is of great importance and explicitly considered in the study. Another relevant factor in the calculation and classification of the potential is the interaction between supply and demand. This is because if a product is not demanded at all or only in very small quantities on the market, it is hardly relevant how much of it could be produced on the production site. The supply potential takes into account the basic PtX resources (electricity, water and CO₂, if applicable) available at a given location ans uses this to calculate the maximum production amount of a given PtX product. The demand potential, on the other hand, calculates the required amount of basic resources that would be needed to meet the demand of a PtX product.
Currently, the PtX supply potential of 30 European countries can already be calculated with the potential analysis tool. In addition, Chile, Costa Rica, Madagascar and Kazakhstan were selected as sample countries within the framework of the Kopernikus P2X project and are availabe for selection. The methodology developed for the criteria-based structuring and differentiation of PtX potential levels was validated on these countries. The results of the bottom-up analysis on the potential of green hydrogen and the PtX derivatives was published in the Roadmap 4.0 of the project [1]. In the web tool, on the other hand, the top-down approach is implemented, starting with the technical electricity potentials.
YearsCommon base years were defined, in order to compare the results with those from the economic and environmental analyses in the projects in which the tool was developed. Therefore, the potentials can be determined for the years 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050. Given the fact that different countries have defined different target years for greenhouse gas neutrality (e.g., 2045 in Germany), comparability is also possible due to the use of the same base years.
ProductsThe tool can be used to determine the potential of many different PtX products. Besides (green) hydrogen as the simplest case, the basic chemical methanol is also implemented. Furthermore, it is also possible to determine the potential for selected synthetic fuels and products that are currently derived from fossil raw materials: Fischer-Tropsch products (gasoline, diesel, kerosene and naphtha), oxygenate fuels (oxymethylene ether [OME3-5], methyl formate [MeFo] and dimethyl carbonate [DMC]) and PME polyols. The mentioned products are in the focus of the projects Kopernikus P2X and NAMOSYN and are based on the technological developments elaborated in these projects, for which reason they were selected for the tool. An eplicit preference of these, compared to other synthesis processes, is not implied (e.g. methanol-to-gasoline vs. Fischer-Tropsch).
ElectricityThe electricity generation potentials were determined with pyGreta [2] on the basis of weather data (from the Kopernikus P2X project partner TU Munich ENS). Specifically for Germany the data is published in detail in the Roadmap 4.0 (see baseline scenario), which is the result of an energy system modeling from the demand model (SPIKE, OTH Regensburg) and the power plant expansion model (urbs, TUM-ENS).
For the other countries, the identified values of technical potentials (wind onshore, wind offshore, solar) were defined as potentials for 2050. For 2020, the current electricity generation amounts were used based on [3]. For the base years 2030 and 2040, a linear increase from 2020 to 2050 was assumed. The electricity potentials of other RE technologies (geothermal, wind offshore, hydropower and biomass) for the countries in the EU were taken from a scenario modeling of the European Commission [3].
Data for non-renewable energy sources are not implemented in the tool, because this tool determines the potential of PtX products. By definition of the German National Hydrogen Strategy, Power-to-X is defined as products that are produced exclusively with green, renewable electricity [4], which is why the tool does not show a temporal development of the non-renewable potentials.
WaterWater is required for the production of all PtX products, as the water electrolysis is located at the beginning of the value chain. Process water must meet certain minimum standards in terms of purity. The tool assumes that fresh water can meet these requirements and no additional treatment process was considered.
Since the presence of fresh water is a basic prerequisite for PtX production, the consideration of local water availability plays a major role (keyword: water stress). Initially, only the renewable fresh water quantities for Germany are available in the tool, for which information is easily (and publicly) available [5]. No change over time for renewable water resources was assumed. If additional information is available for the other countries, the operators of the tool can be contacted.
If there are not any renewable fresh water resoruces nor any data available, the tool offers the option of using desalinated seawater for the PtX process as an alternative. The desalination of seawater requires also electricity (and heat). For this, it is assumed that the selected country has access to the sea. It is assumed, that the electricity needed for desalination is provided from the total electricity potential of the country, and the tool considers an optimal distribution of this electricity (see below).
CO₂The CO₂ sources considered include Direct Air Capture (DAC) as well as biogenic and industrial point sources. In the tool, only one and not a combination of these sources can be selected. Thus, the potentials for either 100% DAC, 100% biogenic point sources or 100% industrial point sources can be calculated. This is done to be able to identifiy the advantages and disadvantages of each source separately, and because the selection of a particular mix depends on political, social and technical aspects. Industrial sources are divided into five sectors that enable CO₂ capture: chemical industry, energy sector, manufacturing and processing of metals, manufacturing of paper and mineral industry. This categorization and the corresponding values of current CO₂ emissions were taken from the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR; as of 2017) [6] of the European Environmental Agency (EEA) and set as values for 2020. For non-European countries, no information is yet available on industrial point sources.
Different assumptions were made per sector for the development of CO₂ emissions in Germany up to 2050. The amount of CO₂ available from industrial sources is further limited by the electrical energy required to capture and purify the CO₂ (see technical parameters). For the potential analysis, biogenic sources are defined as the amount of CO₂ generated as a by-product in the production of bioethanol and biogas. These are taken from [7] for all base years in Germany.
For all the other countries, a temporal development of the industrial point sources for 2030, 2040 and 2050 has not been implemented yet, which is why the PtX potentials for these countries can be determined only with DAC as a CO₂ source. If additional information for other countries is available, the operators of the tool can be contacted.
Direct Air Capture (DAC) makes it possible to separate CO₂ directly from the air. In this process, the CO₂ is recovered as the main product at 1 bar with a high degree of purity and water is also produced as a by-product.
OthersDespite some data gaps, which will be filled in the future, this top-down approach enables a basic determination of the technical potential in all countries considered in the tool. This helps at least to estimate the order of magnitude of the possibilities in terms of supply potential.
In the future, further PtX products will be added, provided that the energy and mass requirements for them are known or publicly available (see Technical Parameters).
The tool calculates first the total electricity potential along the chosen selection of power generation sources. Then, this electricity potential is split in the following order:
If activated, the country's specific electricity requirement is first substracted. This refers exclusively to the direct use of electricity. For Europe, data from the World Energy Outlook 2019 [8] of the International Energy Agency (IEA) are taken as the data basis and divided on the basis of consumption data from the Statistical Office of the European Union (eurostat) (online data code: NRG_CB_E).
The remaining electricity potential is called the PtX electricity potential. If the electricity should be considered for other PtX products in addition to the selected product ("usable share" slider is not set to 100%), the corresponding percentage share flows into "other". The tool does not allow to determine the potential of multiple PtX products at the same time.
Afterwards, the process electricity is divided into a total of four process steps: i) desalination (if "salt water" has been selected), ii) electrolysis, iii) CO₂ (depending on the choice of CO₂ source and the selected product), and iv) production of the selected product from H₂ and eventually CO₂.
The electricity distribution is optimized to maximize the amount of product and the tool takes into account, among others, the absolute quantities of resources (specifically: availability of fresh water and of industrial and biogenic point sources). These depend on the energy and mass requirements (see Technical Parameters). When determining the supply potential, the absolute availability of the selected basic resources will not be exceeded.
The volume potentials of the intermediate products (including water, hydrogen and CO₂) which are calculated with the respective electricity shares, is also shown for the sake of clarity.
When determining the demand potential, a product demand (in million tons) for the selected product, year and country must be included in the tool's database. The energy and mass requirements are then used to calculate the electricity equirement for the processes along the selection made (i.e. fresh/salt water, CO₂ source) and summed up. The quantities of water and, if applicable, CO₂ are also given. The country's specific electricity demand as well as an electricity allocation to other PtX products are not taken into account. Likewise, a selection of power generation technologies is not possible for the demand potential.
[1] Roadmap of the Kopernikus projects P2X: Link
[2] Kais Siala, & Houssame Houmy. (2020, June 1). tum-ens/pyGRETA: python Generator of REnewable Time series and mAps (Version v1.1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3727416; Link to the Github repository
[3] European Commission, Directorate-General for Climate Action, Directorate-General for Energy, Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, Zampara, M., Obersteiner, M., Evangelopoulou, S., et al., EU reference scenario 2016 : energy, transport and GHG emissions : trends to 2050, Publications Office, 2016, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2833/001137Directorate-General for Climate Action (European Commission) u. a., EU reference scenario 2016: energy, transport and GHG emissions: trends to 2050. LU: Publications Office of the European Union, 2016. Zugegriffen: 5. September 2022. [Online]. Verfügbar unter: https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2833/001137 Link
[4] The National Hydrogen Strategy; Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi): Berlin, 2020.; Link
[5] Wasserressourcen und ihre Nutzung - Wasserbilanz für Deutschland; Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde; Dessau-Roßlau, 20.04.2020 Link
[6] European Pollulant Release and Transfer Register Link
[7] Fröhlich, T.; Blömer, S.; Münter, D.; Brischke, L.-A. CO₂-Quellen Für Die PtX-Herstellung in Deutschland - Technologien, Umweltwirkung, Verfügbarkeit; ifeu – Institut für Energie- und Umweltforschung Heidelberg gGmbH: Heidelberg, 2019. Link
[9] International Energy Agency, World energy outlook 2019. 2019. Link