Power-to-Fuel

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Power-to-Fuel (German: electricity to fuel ) generally describes the production of electricity-based synthetic fuels , so-called e-fuels , for the transport sector . The term is a collective name for various power-to-gas and power-to-liquid paths, in which electrical energy from renewable energies is used to produce either electricity-based fuel gases or liquid fuels.

Power-to-fuel includes the production chains of hydrogen , ammonia , methane and syngas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide ) via power-to-gas. This also includes the production of methanol using power-to-liquid technology. The starting point is always the generation of hydrogen through water electrolysis .

Power-to-Fuel is one of the so-called Power-to-X technologies, which enable the electricity sector and the transport sector to be interlinked within the framework of sector coupling . Synthetic fuels obtained using power-to-fuel processes are considered to be an important factor in decarbonising means of transport that can hardly be electrified, such as aircraft and ships . The negative aspect, however, is the low overall efficiency , which is far lower than direct electrification via electric cars . For example, hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles require more than twice as much energy per km as electric cars, and cars with internal combustion engines powered by power-to-liquid fuels even more than six times as much energy. Because of these properties, the German Advisory Council on the Environment recommends limiting the use of electricity-based synthetic fuels primarily to air and shipping traffic in order not to let electricity consumption rise too much.

It is also important that positive effects for the environment and the climate can only be achieved if only electrical energy from renewable sources is used. If, on the other hand, lignite electricity were to be used for gas production, the carbon dioxide emissions of a gas car powered in this way would be around a factor of 6 higher than a car that uses fossil diesel fuel.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Ulrich Bünger, Jan Michalski, Patrick Schmidt and Werner Weindorf, Hydrogen - Key Element of Power-to-X , in: Johannes Töpler, Jochen Lehmann (Ed.): Hydrogen and Fuel Cell. Technologies and market prospects . 2nd edition, Berlin - Heidelberg 2017, 327–368, here p. 328f., ISBN 978-3-662-53359-8 .
  2. ^ Andre Sternberg, Andre Bardow: Power-to-What? - Environmental assessment of energy storage systems . In: Energy and Environmental Science . tape 8 , 2015, p. 389-400 , doi : 10.1039 / c4ee03051f .
  3. ↑ See Michael Sterner , Ingo Stadler (Hrsg.): Energiespeicher. Need, technologies, integration. 2nd edition, Berlin Heidelberg 2017, p. 31 u. 185
  4. ↑ Council of Economic Experts for Environmental Issues 2017. Change of direction required: Climate protection in the transport sector. Special report, especially p. 16. and p. 87 . Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  5. ↑ See Michael Sterner , Ingo Stadler (Hrsg.): Energiespeicher. Need, technologies, integration. 2nd edition, Berlin Heidelberg 2017, p. 465.