COMECOCO2. Development of a P2L (“Power to Liquid”) technology for the generation of green fuels (methanol) from renewable sources and water.

On February 5, the launch meeting of the COMECOCO2 national project took place in Barcelona, ​​an innovation project funded within the TRANSMISIONES 2024 program (CDTI + AEI). Coordinated by the Institut de Recerca en Energía de Catalunya (IREC), CENER participates from its Hydrogen Area as leader of one of the main work packages.

The main objective of the project is the development of a P2L (“Power to Liquid”) technology for the generation of green fuels (methanol) from renewable sources and water. This technology aims to provide a differential value in the decarbonization of sectors that are difficult to electrify, specifically the maritime sector, where green methanol is seen as one of the most promising options (it is worth highlighting the participation of the Port of Barcelona as part of the advisory committee).

COMECOCO2 has a total budget of close to €7 million for the next four years. The consortium is made up of a total of 12 institutions, combining basic and applied research centres (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA-CSIC), Lurederra, IREC, Eurecat and CENER) with companies from the energy and manufacturing sectors (Viver Cleantech, ACCIONA Agua, AMES PM Tech Center, Nano4Energy, AESA and Green Grouping).

In the project, CENER puts at the service of the consortium its capabilities in component design and modelling, balance-of-plant simulation of systems and subsystems, prototyping and validation of final systems in a controlled environment. Thus, the Modelling and Systems group of the Hydrogen Area will coordinate the conceptualization, design and prototyping of a new integrated SOEC co-electrolysis system and catalytic reactor for methanol production, in which the synergies between both processes are maximized to optimize the efficiency of the whole.

In addition, CENER will contribute its expertise in computational fluid simulation for the optimization of interconnector designs, a key component of the SOEC co-electrolysis module. Finally, the ATENEA microgrid facilities will be used to validate the final system in a controlled environment, where coupling and hybridization studies of technologies can be carried out, as well as analyzing the response of the equipment to different common events in the network.