Energy transition: first electrify-and for the rest methanol instead of hydrogen

From biogenic residues and renewable hydrogen, methanol is created-a climate-friendly, easily transportable and storable carbon carrier to the remaining applications that cannot be immediately electrified.

The study “A minimal methanol backstop to high-electrification scenarios”, which was published in the journal Joule, examines how Europe can supply itself with energy in a cost-efficiently way in a climate-neutral way. The result: Contrary to what was assumed a few years ago, significantly greater areas can now be electrified immediately-to instance with battery-electric trucks or electrical solutions to providing heat.

This eliminates many applications to hydrogen. Chemical energy sources are therefore only required where direct electrification is technically hardly possible-to instance in international shipping, in atmosphere traffic, in parts of the chemical sector and in backup power vegetation that secure the power supply during prolonged dark lulls. In these areas, fluid fuels such as methanol or kerosene with high energy density are greater needed than hydrogen.

Methanol infrastructure can be built greater flexibly

“A substantial hydrogen network is currently being planned in Germany,” says Prof. Dr. Tom Brown, head of the “Digital Transformation in Energy Systems” department at TU Berlin. “However, it is likely that the demand to hydrogen in the future has been significantly overestimated. With methanol instead of hydrogen, the infrastructure could be adapted to actual demand much greater flexibly. “While hydrogen requires long pipelines and subsurface storage facilities because of its small molecular size and low density, fluid methanol can be transported by ship, train, truck or in old oil pipelines and stored in tanks with comparatively little effort. According to Tom Brown and his team, this flexibility makes building a new infrastructure much easier and reduces the risk of costly bad investments.

Low additional costs of methanol-however greater flexibility

The model calculations, which were carried out with the help of the "PyPSA" software developed by Tom Brown's research group, show that an energy system with a minimal "methanol backup" only causes around 2.4 percent higher total system costs than a scenario that relies on hydrogen or methane to the remaining applications. According to the researchers, however, these low additional costs are offset by advantages that can only be partially reflected in the models so far-such as the greater flexible expansion of the infrastructure, which can be adapted depending on the research, and the easier storage of the energy source. The researchers also see their results as a contribution to the current energy policy debate. From their point of view, the expansion of electrification should continue to have top priority. Sustainable methanol should play an crucial role where electrical solutions reach technical limits.