Assessing the impact of decarbonization pathways for oil refineries on the city energy system: A case study of Gothenburg

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Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Sustainable energy systems (MPSES), MSc
Publicerad
2021
Författare
Fast, Adam
Marnate, Kumail
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Sammanfattning
Decarbonization of the refining industry will play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions of its downstream actors but also from the industry itself. This work investigates the refining sector of the city of Gothenburg by assessing the impact of different decarbonization pathways on the local energy system. The work highlights how the operation of both the electricity and the district heating network will be impacted, the new investments in these networks that will be needed, and how the refinery will operate in synergy with the energy system. The decarbonization pathways are modelled for the year 2045 with their corresponding energy balances and integrated into the city energy system model. The decarbonization pathways attempt to achieve net-zero emissions on the refining industry and it was noticed that this goal might not be achievable if the feedstock is fossil based crude oil. The fossil based crude oil can be produced synthetically from either restructuring the refineries as an electro-refinery or a bio-refinery. The former comes with an enormous electricity demand while the latter comes with a large demand for biofuel with minimum impact on the electricity grid. City investments in variable renewable electricity generation can synergise well with a flexible future refinery supporting the grid as a variation management strategy. The type of strategy will used at the refinery will depend on setup, season and energy system investments. A large impact of these decarbonization scenarios will also be on the residual heat available from the refineries for the district heating network as they could be higher or lower compared to their current shares. This thesis also discusses how the change in excess heat availability can be catered for by the energy system in the most economical way. This work highlights that any decarbonization of the refining industry should be a combined effort between the actors in the local, if not regional, energy system and the refinery stakeholders for an optimum economic solutions and energy consumption.
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refinery , decarbonization , jet fuel , kerosene , industry , net-zero , emissions , VMS
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