Liu J

Vol. 24,  No. 4, pp. 357-364, Dec.  2018
10.7464/ksct.2018.24.4.357

Biogas Combined heat and power production Macroalgae Process design fuel cells

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Studies on the production of biogas from third generation biomass, such as micro- and macroalgae, have been conducted through experiments of various scales. In this paper, we investigated the feasibility of commercialization of integrated combined heat and power (CHP) production using biogas derived from macroalgae, i.e., seaweed biomass. For this purpose, an integrated CHP plant of industrial scale, consisting of solid oxide fuel cells, gas turbine and organic Rankine cycle, was designed and simulated using a commercial process simulator. The cost of each equipment in the plant was estimated through the calculated heat and mass balances from simulation and then the techno-economic analysis was performed. The designed integrated CHP process produces 68.4 MW of power using 36 ton h-1 of biogas from 62.5 ton h-1 (dry basis) of brown algae. Based on these results, various scenarios were evaluated economically and the levelized electricity cost (LEC) was calculated. When the lifetime of SOFC is 5 years and its stack price is $225 kW-1, the LEC was 12.26 ￠ kWh-1, which is comparable to the conventional fixed power generation.