TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of electrification and hydrogen in breaking the biomass bottleneck of the renewable energy system – A study on the Danish energy system
AU - Mortensen, Anders Winther
AU - Mathiesen, Brian Vad
AU - Hansen, Anders Bavnhøj
AU - Pedersen, Sigurd Lauge
AU - Grandal, Rune Duban
AU - Wenzel, Henrik
PY - 2020/10/1
Y1 - 2020/10/1
N2 - The aim of this study is to identify the technical solution space for future fully renewable energy systems that stays within a sustainable biomass demand. In the transition towards non-fossil energy and material systems, biomass is an attractive source of carbon for those demands that also in the non-fossil systems depend on high density, carbon containing fuels and feedstocks. However, extensive land use is already a sustainability challenge and an increase in future demands threat to exceed global sustainable biomass potentials which according to an international expert consensus is around 10 – 30 GJ/person/year in 2050. Our analytical review of 16 scenarios from 8 independent studies of fully renewable energy system designs, and synthesis of 9 generic system designs, reveals the significance of the role of electrification and hydrogen integration for building a fully renewable energy system which respects the global biomass limitations. The biomass demand of different fully renewable energy system designs was found to lie in the range of 0 GJ/person/year for highly integrated, electrified, pure electrofuel scenarios with up to 25 GJ/person/year of hydrogen to above 200 GJ/person/year for poorly integrated, full bioenergy scenarios with no electrification or hydrogen integration. It was found that a high degree of system electrification and hydrogen integration of at least 15 GJ/person/year is required to stay within sustainable biomass limits.
AB - The aim of this study is to identify the technical solution space for future fully renewable energy systems that stays within a sustainable biomass demand. In the transition towards non-fossil energy and material systems, biomass is an attractive source of carbon for those demands that also in the non-fossil systems depend on high density, carbon containing fuels and feedstocks. However, extensive land use is already a sustainability challenge and an increase in future demands threat to exceed global sustainable biomass potentials which according to an international expert consensus is around 10 – 30 GJ/person/year in 2050. Our analytical review of 16 scenarios from 8 independent studies of fully renewable energy system designs, and synthesis of 9 generic system designs, reveals the significance of the role of electrification and hydrogen integration for building a fully renewable energy system which respects the global biomass limitations. The biomass demand of different fully renewable energy system designs was found to lie in the range of 0 GJ/person/year for highly integrated, electrified, pure electrofuel scenarios with up to 25 GJ/person/year of hydrogen to above 200 GJ/person/year for poorly integrated, full bioenergy scenarios with no electrification or hydrogen integration. It was found that a high degree of system electrification and hydrogen integration of at least 15 GJ/person/year is required to stay within sustainable biomass limits.
KW - Biomass
KW - Electrification
KW - Energy system modeling
KW - Hydrogen
KW - Renewable energy systems
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086593181&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115331
DO - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115331
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85086593181
SN - 0306-2619
VL - 275
JO - Applied Energy
JF - Applied Energy
M1 - 115331
ER -