Unlocking the Potential of Synthetic Fuel Production: Coupled Optimization of Heat Exchanger Network and Operating Parameters of a 1 MW Power-to-Liquid Plant

TL;DR

This paper presents a coupled optimization approach for a 1 MW Power-to-Liquid plant, improving efficiency and reducing costs by integrating heat exchanger network design with operating parameters using MILP and Pareto optimization.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multi-criteria optimization method that jointly optimizes heat exchanger networks and operating points for synthetic fuel plants, enhancing efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Findings

Production cost reduced to 1.83 EUR/kg

PtL-efficiency increased to 61.30%

Multi-criteria optimization yields Pareto-efficient solutions

Abstract

The use of synthetic fuels is a promising way to reduce emissions significantly. To accelerate cost-effective large-scale synthetic fuel deployment, we optimize a novel 1 MW PtL-plant in terms of PtL-efficiency and fuel production costs. For numerous plants, the available waste heat and temperature level depend on the operating point. Thus, to optimize efficiency and costs, the choice of the operating point is included in the heat exchanger network synthesis. All nonlinearities are approximated using piecewise linear models and transferred to MILP. Adapting the epsilon constraint method allows us to solve the multi-criteria problem with uniformly distributed solutions on the Pareto front. The results show that compared to the conventional design process, the production cost can be reduced to 1.83 EUR/kg and the PtL-efficiency can be increased to 61.30 %. By applying the presented method, climate-neutral synthetic fuels can be promoted and emissions can be reduced in the long term.