Plant Capacity Optimization of Integrated Energy Production Units (IEPU) Considering a Complete Process Technology Portfolio

With the environmental problems becoming more severe, renewable energy has developed rapidly worldwide. However, this has led to the problem of grid consumption caused by the unstable power output of renewable energy sources and the tight survival space of fossil fuel power plants. Integrated Energy Production Unit (IEPU) is proposed to achieve system integration and low carbon operation of existing coal-fired power plants with renewable energy using power-to-hydrogen (P2H) and carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies. In this study, the capacity configuration of the IEPU considering the portfolio of technologies for the whole process is analyzed under different boundary conditions. The Mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is used to optimize and simulate the equipment capacity of IEPU. The simulation results show that the change in load affects the ratio of photovoltaic (PV) to wind turbine (WT) generation capacity allocation. Compared with alkaline electrolyser (EL), proton exchange membrane electrolyser (PEM) is selected only when the load approaches the upper limit of renewable energy output. In a variety of scenarios, synthesizing methanol (MeOH) has better economics than methane (CH4).