Biogas beyond CHP: The HPC (heat, power & chemicals) process

The techno-economic feasibility of three biogas utilization processes was assessed through computersimulations on commercial process simulator Aspen HYSYS: HPC (biogas to methanol), BioCH4(biogas tobiomethane) and CHP (biogas to heat&electricity). The last two processes are already used commerciallywith the aid of subsidy policies. The economic analysis indicates that, without these policies, none ofthese attain economic self-sustainability due to high overall manufacturing costs. The estimated mini-mum support cost (MSCs) were 108, 62 and 109V/MWh for the HPC, BioCH4and CHP processes,respectively. The model could explain currently practised government subsidies in Italy and Germany. It was seen that the newly proposed HPC process is economically comparable to the traditional CHPprocess. Therefore, the HPC process is a possible alternative to biogas usage. A support policy wasproposed: 50, 66, 158 and 148V/MWh for available heat, methane, electricity and methanol (respec-tively); the proposed energy policy results in a 10% OpEx rate of return for any of the processes, thusavoiding a disparity in the production of different products.