Techno-Economic Assessment of the Power-and-Biomass-to-Liquid (PBTL) Concept

Abstract

The emission mitigation and decarbonization of the aviation sector requires alternative sustainable fuels. To assess and compare the techno-economic performance of different fuel production pathways a standardized evaluation methodology is required. The developed methodology comprises six steps including detailed process simulation, heat and material integration and cost analysis. The process simulation and economic analysis is coupled and an optimization towards cost minimization is conducted. The methodology was applied in a case study of the Power-and-Biomass-to-Liquid concept (PBTL). An overall efficiency of XTL = 45.0 % was found and the carbon conversion of carbon from biomass into fuels is 97.7 %. The cost analysis reveals total investment costs of 751 M€ (315,100 €/bpd) and net production costs of 2.97 €/kg. The costs for the electrolyzer and the gasifier represent the largest shares of the total capital costs. The net production costs are dominated by the electricity costs.