A bottom-up appraisal of the technically installable capacity of
biogas-based solid oxide fuel cells for self power generation in wastewater
treatment plants
biogas-based solid oxide fuel cells for self power generation in wastewater
treatment plants
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
This paper proposes a bottom-up method to estimate the technical capacity of solid oxide fuel cells to be installed in wastewater treatment plants and valorise the biogas obtained from the sludge through an efficient conversion into electricity and heat. The methodology uses stochastic optimisation on 200 biogas profile scenarios generated from industrial data and envisages a Pareto approach for an a posteriori assessment of the optimal number of generation unit for the most representative plant configuration sizes. The method ensures that the dominant role of biogas fluctuation is included in the market potential and guarantees that the utilization factor of the modules remains higher than 70% to justify the investment costs. Results show that the market potential for solid oxide fuel cells across Europe would lead up to 1,300 MW of installed electric capacity in the niche market of wastewater treatment and could initiate a capital and fixed costs reduction which could make the technology comparable with alternative combined heat and power solutions.
Date Issued
2021-02-01
Date Acceptance
2020-11-24
Citation
Journal of Environmental Management, 2021, 279, pp.1-15
ISSN
0301-4797
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
1
End Page
15
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Environmental Management
Volume
279
Copyright Statement
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Sponsor
Commission of the European Communities
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479720316789?via%3Dihub
Grant Number
671470
NE/N018656/1
Subjects
Biogas
Optimisation
Solid oxide fuel cells
Wastewater treatment
Biofuels
Europe
Family Characteristics
Oxides
Power Plants
Water Purification
Oxides
Family Characteristics
Water Purification
Power Plants
Europe
Biofuels
Environmental Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 111753
Date Publish Online
2020-12-15