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Linking Power-to-X and district heating will boost the green transition
By Henrik Dalsgård, VP of District Energy, COWI and Maral Taghva, Senior Specialist in Power-to-X, COWI
The interconnection of Power-to-X produced hydrogen and district heating has the potential to be a key catalyst for the green transition. And therefore, district heating is vital for the success of the Danish Power-to-X strategy and can easily cover up to 20% of the Danish DH demand.
Denmark is one of the pioneers in developing energy-efficient concepts such as district heating, which uses waste or surplus energy from industries such as power plants and waste incin- eration facilities. But to promote the green transition, ener- gy-efficient strategies are not enough: We also need to cut car- bon dioxide emissions and eventually reach zero emissions. Power-to-X is expected to play a key role in our future energy production and solve two of the major challenges on our path to the end goal of the green transition. Power-to-X converts green power into carbon-neutral fuels, eventually replacing fossil fuels and cutting carbon dioxide emissions. They can be stored and utilized the same way as existing fuels. A wide range of benefits Power-to-X processes also produce considerable waste heat as a by-product, with up to 25 percent of the plant energy intake ending up as surplus heat. A 6 GW hydrogen production plant could meet around 20 percent of Denmark’s total district heat- ing demand.
electrolysis plants, which will create future jobs and revenues from the export of green technologies. Some of the studies conducted by COWI show that the estimated price of hydro- gen production could be reduced by five to ten percent if dis- trict heating was combined with electrolysis processes. This could encourage stakeholders to invest in establishing more hydrogen plants in countries with high heating demands, such as Denmark. The calculation is based on a simple estimation of the value of heat and the value of electricity. District heating delivered to district heating networks is sold to around 15–25 EUR/MWh, depending on the local heat network. The Danish regulation sets a sealing for the price of surplus heat of 37 EUR/MWh, based on a calculation of investment in the cheapest alterna- tive supplies (heat pump or biomass). The heat income compared to the value of electricity results in a financial "recovery" of approximately 50% of the wasted en- ergy when utilized as district heating. The income from selling the surplus heat goes straight to the bottom line as there is no additional OPEX. The investment in heat recovery is estimated to be insignificant compared to other PtX-investments. It can
Other than high energy efficiency, waste-heat recovery in- cludes many other benefits, including the competitiveness of
38 HOTCOOL SPECIAL COLLECTION no.2 / 2022
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