P2G-Biocat 3, System control and integration

Electrochaea´s bio-methanation technology is an innovative and disruptive solution to offer a solution to the growing problematic of energy storage and to produce renewable natural gas readily available for gas grid injection. Bio-methanation uses biological catalysis to produce methane from hydrogen and CO2. The hydrogen is produced on demand by electrolysis. The Biocat plant, the largest pilot-plant of bio-methanation, offers a unique platform to develop the technology and demonstrate its performance.

The Biocat 3 project aims at finalizing the maturation of the bio-methanation technology developed during the former Biocat projects by:

• achieving a full system automation and integration to its interfaces (power supply, heat exchange) to propose an autonomous system able to respond to Power balancing requests,
• completing the evaluation of the process performance after several improvements and for different sources of CO2
• developing a predictive dynamic model and high-level control strategy to support the design and operation of future commercial units
• refining the techno-economic model for operating the system in the current Danish energy environment

These goals require improvements to the physical plant to operate in all weather conditions, permit optimal energy recovery on the Biocat site, and allow automated operation for 365/24/7 operations.