Thermo-economic optimisation of the integration of electrolysis in a wood to methane process

Converting wood to grid quality methane allows to distribute a CO2 free, renewable enery resource in a conventional energy distribution system and use it in transportation applications. Using a previously developed thermo-economic process model for thermochernical production of synthetic natural gas from wood and applying a multi-objective optimisation algorithm, the present paper assesses the prospect of integrating an electrolyser in the system. Due to an inherent lack of hydrogen for complete conversion of-wood into methane, it is shown that electrolysis is a viable option for increasing the gas output, storage of electricity and production of fuel that further mitigates national CO2-emissions.