Deliverable 8.9 Report on an EU-wide potential analysis of power-to-gas locations coupled to local CO2 and renewable energy sources
This report’s objectives were to identify suitable locations for power-to-methane (PtM) in Europe and to estimate the methane production potential for 2050. The PtM location identification is based on the concept of coupling existing CO2 sources (biogas and industrial plants) with locally available renewable energy (RE) sources, i.e. wind turbines and utility-scale PV systems. The data acquisition was performed by researching publicly available data on renewable energy generation and biogas production sites, as well as by manual research to confirm or extend the available data. For the industrial CO2 emissions, the European Pollutant Release and Transfer database was exploited. The projections of the 2050 methane production potentials were carried out on national level. Since the design of this study centres the development of power-to-methane plants around existing CO2 sources, the production potentials were assessed on the basis of two scenarios for the future availability of CO2: a limited CO2 availability scenario and a balanced CO2 availability scenario, respectively. The resulting power-to-methane maps provide insights into the possibilities of developing a methanation technology rollout starting from the status quo of renewable energy infrastructure in Europe.
