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In accordance with the Declaration of Climate Emergency (DEC) approved on 30th August 2019, the Canary Islands must achieve the goal of total decarbonisation of the economy before 2040. To achieve this objective, the Canary Islands have to increase the use of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) to supply not only electrical demands but also heat and mobility (including both maritime and air transport sectors).
In this decarbonisation goal, the mobility sector faces problems that must be solved in the short-term. Nowadays efforts are focused on promoting electric vehicles, being a suitable solution for utility vehicles such as cars or motorcycles. However, the solution is less competitive when the size of the vehicle is bigger, like in the case of buses or trucks. As an example, in an electric bus a battery of 600 kWh is needed. Using a fast charging station of 50 kW a bus will require around 12 hours to be charged. This represents a new logistical problem that hydrogen technologies could solve. On the other hand, the weight of these batteries, currently at 4 kg/kWh, could reach 2,400 kg, which also has consequences in the energy efficiency of the road transport sector. Hydrogen could be used as energy carrier for the heavy road transport sector. In this case, hydrogen is stored in tanks that can be filled in less than 15 minutes, using this green fuel to supply the fuel cell installed on board these vehicles.
The decarbonisation of the maritime transport sector is even more complex. The maritime sector represents approximately The synthesis of fuels such as methane, methanol, and ammonia, from a renewable energy primary source, is of special interest for decarbonizing marine transport. These synthetic fuels can be produced using renewable energy and well-known reactions like Haber-Bosch, Sabatier, and Fischer-Tropsch processes, allowing for the production of E-Fuels through what has come to be called Power-to-gas and Power-to-liquid. In the case of synthetic methane (CH4), the hydrogen produced from electrolysis of water powered by wind and/or photovoltaic power, would be combined with CO2 obtained from the biodigestion of organic waste (Waste to energy supporting a circular economy). In the same way, ammonia (NH3) can be produced with green hydrogen from water electrolysis and nitrogen extracted from the air (79% of air is N2), feeding this syngas into a Haber-Bosch process reactor. Both alternatives can produce an E-Fuel that can be managed in liquid stage at relatively low pressures (Even liquid at atmospheric pressure in the case of methanol), reducing the volume that is required for its transport inside the ships, compared to other technical solutions like the direct use of high-pressure hydrogen (or even liquid hydrogen at -252.7 ºC).
The BIOGREENFINERY project is allowing for the construction of the first biorefinery in the Canary Islands that will provide an excellent infrastructure to advance in the field of E-fuels derived from green hydrogen. The archipelago is also making progress in the promotion of Renewable energies – hydrogen integration. The first electrolyser in the Canary Islands was installed at ITC facilities in Gran Canaria in 2007; the third was installed last year at a cattle farm in Gran Canaria, and the fourth and fifth electrolysers have been installed in 2023 at ITC facilities. ITC infrastructure, through its BioenergyLab laboratory, is making it possible to promote waste-to-energy recovery in the archipelago. In short, the technical advantages and difficulties of most of the technologies that will make the decarbonisation of the Canary Islands possible have been confirmed, with the exception of the production of synthetic fuels.
Within this European Recovery Instrument (Next Generation EU), ITC’s BIOGREENFINERY-GREEN HYDROGEN FOR THE BIOREFINERY project (Exp. SD-2110) was carried out, financed with Recovery Aid Funds for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU) and granted to the ITC by the Ministry of Economy, Knowledge and Employment of the Government of the Canary Islands through the Canary Islands Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI). The activity consists of the installation of an integrated hydrogen production system powered by a stand-alone off-grid wind-photovoltaic hybrid system, for its subsequent use for covering energy demand of the thermochemical processes for the synthesis of fuels. The project contributes towards a green, sustainable and circular economy, the improvement in energy efficiency, and demonstrate the possibilities that the use of new green hydrogen derived energy carriers offer for applying renewable energy to the descarbonización of road, marine and air transport.
BIOGREENFINERY wants to demonstrate the technical feasibility and analyse the economic viability in the production of alternative fuels such as green hydrogen and synthetic fuels associated with the transport sector where currently fully renewable solutions have not been tested that allow ensuring supply under equivalent operating conditions. These alternative fuels could also be used for stationary applications in cases of needed Demand Side Management, such as when the available storage systems are not capable of providing the regulation services required to maintain the stability of the electrical system.
The integrated RES-H2 system that includes the biorefinery produces hydrogen for use or in the synthesis of green E-fuels. Both hydrogen for direct use in the heavy road transport sector, and in the production of synthetic fuels for the maritime and air transport sectors of the Canary Islands, contributes to reducing the current total dependence on imported oil of the archipelago. In the current situation, the action contributes to accelerate the energy transition with all the social, economic and environmental benefits.
The biorefinery operates in a self-consumption regime, through an off-grid stand-alone hybrid wind-photovoltaic-biodiesel system that provides the renewable energy necessary to produce hydrogen and synthetic fuels. It is the perfect test to demonstrate the demand side management capacity of this solution. It is a project that from its origin fits into the definition of a green project, not only as a climate-change mitigation measure, but even in the creation of new local green jobs, through training of new professionals and specialized companies in the field of RE-H2 integration in which there is currently the need for developing more knowledge and capacity building in Europe.
