BUSINESSES & HOUSING COMPLEXES (WP 3)

This pilot component focuses on energy storage and Power to Gas at office and residential blocks of building; so at meso scale level.

The project components developed for households (battery storage, hydrogen storage, heat pump, heat storage) are applied in this project component on a larger, combined scale.

The disadvantage of hydrogen generated via electrolysis is that the storage thereof is complex and expensive, and that there is barely any infrastructure available to transport the gas to the user. This project component evaluates the options of binding CO2 to the hydrogen in an efficient manner as possible. This yields methanol or methane; both substances are far easier to store. By deploying
methanol, methane and hydrogen it’s possible to store energy surpluses from the summer, for wintertime usage.

Moreover, this project component also includes the development of a relatively small-scale kitchen waste fermenter. Besides, methane, biogas from a fermenter also contains CO2. As such, sufficient “cheap” CO2 is available in order to chemically bind hydrogen from the electrolyzer to methane or methanol. Furthermore, the thermal energy released in the electrolyzer and by the compression of methane, is used to optimize the organic processes in the fermenter. This yields increased biogas production, as well as enhanced efficiency of the Power to Gas process.