U.S. Department of Energy pushes renewables : DOE grants $41 Million for renewables-to-liquid innovation projects
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has approved $41 million for 14 projects to develop Renewables-to-Liquids (RtL) technologies that use renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to produce liquids for sustainable fuels or chemicals that can be transported and stored as easily as carbon-intensive liquids such as gasoline or oil. Renewable energy resources are often not connected to the current US electricity grid. By enabling the transport of sustainable fuels, the selected projects can reduce interconnection barriers while helping to reduce emissions from hard-to-decarbonise industrial sectors.
“With this announcement, the Department of Energy charges forward on its mission of finding and elevating new technologies to ensure that the United States remains innovative and energy independent,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “Renewables-to-liquids fuel production has the potential to boost the utility of renewable energy all while helping to lay the groundwork for the Biden-Harris Administration’s goals of creating a clean energy economy.”
Pushing renewable energy
Selected project teams will develop systems that harness renewable energy at production sites to convert electricity, carbon dioxide, and water into liquids for use as renewable fuels or substitutes for conventional fuels. These clean fuels could be vital for sectors that are difficult to decarbonize, such as transportation.
Currently, low-carbon fuels are costly, averaging around $10 per gallon. However, by utilizing cheaper electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar, independent of the grid, producers can reduce overall costs.
The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) will oversee these projects through its new GREENWELLS program, which aims to economically store at least 50% of intermittent electrical energy in carbon-containing liquids. This marks ARPA-E's first venture into Renewable-to-Liquid (RtL) fuel approaches.
Selected projects
Among the projects selected for the further development of these RtL systems are
- Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA) will work on an electrochemical reactor that responds quickly to dynamic changes in renewable energy to work with direct air capture systems that produce syngas for hydrocarbon production. (Award amount: $1,970,200)
- HeatPath Solutions (Lewis Center, OH) will develop a new way to synthesize methanol that works dynamically with intermittent renewable electricity to create a new path for on-site production and collection of methanol from modular reactors operating at modest temperatures and pressures. (Award amount: $4,000,000)
- Susteon (Cary, NC) aims to develop a process to produce kerosene-range hydrocarbons using carbon dioxide, hydrogen and renewable electricity. Susteon's approach aims to provide a new technology platform for the production of jet fuels and other valuable fuels and chemicals (Award amount: $4,999,500).
See the full list of selected projects here.
