Evaluation and Discussion

Abstract

The lowest production costs are enabled by directly connecting the Power-to-Fuel plant to onshore wind, solar photovoltaics and hydropower generation. Generally, the differences between onshore wind in Morocco, hydropower in Scandinavia, solar photovoltaics in Dubai, and a mix of onshore wind and photovoltaics in South Australia are small for optimized Power-to-Fuel plants. These plants enable fuel production costs between 104 and 128 EUR/MWh. The capacity factors of main components significantly vary for different Power-to-Fuel plants and are not directly correlated to fuel production costs. Operational flexibility (e.g. ramp rate, part load operation) is identified as important techno-economic parameter. After adding transportation costs and margins electricity-based fuels will likely compete with biofuels on a price basis in the next decade, but could result in lower greenhouse gas avoidance costs. Electricity-based fuels could be the most cost-efficient pathway for the defossilization of liquid transportation fuels.