The role of electrification and hydrogen in breaking the biomass bottleneck of the renewable energy system – A study on the Danish energy system

• Published in: Applied energy Vol. 275; p. 115331
• Main Authors: Mortensen, Anders Winther, Mathiesen, Brian Vad, Hansen, Anders Bavnhøj, Pedersen, Sigurd Lauge, Grandal, Rune Duban, Wenzel, Henrik
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2020
• Subjects: Biomass; Electrification; Energy system modeling; Hydrogen; Renewable energy systems; Renewable energy systems; Electrification; Biomass; Hydrogen; Energy system modeling
• ISSN: 0306-2619; 1872-9118
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115331

•Renewable energy system design approaches towards a sustainable biomass consumption.•Hydrogen integration for electrofuel production to replace biofuels.•Electrification in renewable energy systems reduces demand for biomass and hydrogen.•Electrification and hydrogen integration needed to reach sustainable biomass demand. The aim of this study is to identify the technical solution space for future fully renewable energy systems that stays within a sustainable biomass demand. In the transition towards non-fossil energy and material systems, biomass is an attractive source of carbon for those demands that also in the non-fossil systems depend on high density, carbon containing fuels and feedstocks. However, extensive land use is already a sustainability challenge and an increase in future demands threat to exceed global sustainable biomass potentials which according to an international expert consensus is around 10 – 30 GJ/person/year in 2050. Our analytical review of 16 scenarios from 8 independent studies of fully renewable energy system designs, and synthesis of 9 generic system designs, reveals the significance of the role of electrification and hydrogen integration for building a fully renewable energy system which respects the global biomass limitations. The biomass demand of different fully renewable energy system designs was found to lie in the range of 0 GJ/person/year for highly integrated, electrified, pure electrofuel scenarios with up to 25 GJ/person/year of hydrogen to above 200 GJ/person/year for poorly integrated, full bioenergy scenarios with no electrification or hydrogen integration. It was found that a high degree of system electrification and hydrogen integration of at least 15 GJ/person/year is required to stay within sustainable biomass limits.