Economic Analysis and Evaluation of Process of Co-Generation of Dydrogen, Methanol, and Power from Biomass

Using bio-fuels in energy intensive sectors not only has the potential to increase the efficiency of utilization of resources but also helps to have secure resources and to speed up sustainable development. In this paper a process to co-generation has been designed and its performance has been evaluated. In this regard, the effect of change of some of operational parameters has been presented on the process performance. The rates of methanol and hydrogen production in the base case are 16 and 4 tonne per hour, respectively. Besides, the process has the potential to generate 45 megawatts power and the net profit is calculated to be 360 million dollars that may have economic attractiveness. Considering the costs of the base case process (41 million dollars) regardless the profit due to sale of products, the costs of producing methanol, hydrogen, and power are 300 dollars per tonne, 2 dollars per kilogram, and 3 cent per megajoules, respectively. These costs are attractive in comparison with the market prices which are 549 dollars per tonne methanol, 10 dollars per kilogram hydrogen, and 3 cent per megajoules power.