Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

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Renewable Energy
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m/ l o c a t e / r e n e n e

Microalgae cofiring in coal power plants: Innovative system layout and energy
analysis
*
A. Giostri , M. Binotti, E. Macchi
Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Energia, Via Lambruschini 4, 20156 Milano, Italy

article info abstract

Article history: This paper investigates the smart integration of a 500 ha microalgae culturing facility with a large scale coal power plant
Received 20 January 2015
(758.6 MWe): a fraction of the CO2 contained in the coal plant flue gases is used for the algal cultivation, a fraction of the low-
Received in revised form
temperature flue gas heat available is used for the biomass drying, finally the produced biomass is co-fired in the coal plant.
22 March 2016
The produced algal biomass represents approximately 1% of the boiler heat input.
Accepted 10 April 2016
Available online 27 April 2016
Through the solution of energy and mass balances of each plant component, the overall system per-formances in terms of

Keywords: net energy ratio (NER) and CO 2 emissions reduction are obtained. The computed NER (1.92) guarantees an energy harvest
Renewable energy almost twice the energetic cost needed to produce the microalgal fuel. The total CO 2 emissions are reduced of approximately
Biomass 0.48%, identifying microalgae cofiring as a solution able to reduce the environmental impact of electricity generation. A
Bioenergy 1
simplified economic analysis has allowed an estimate of the algal system investment cost (about 235 k V ha ) and of the
Microalgae 1
Raceway pond levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) (554.4 V MWh ). A set of sensitivity analyses is finally per-formed to investigate the
Cofiring influence of the initial hypotheses on the results.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction from agriculture etc.) has been extensively considered, neverthe-less,

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), more than 80% of
the world primary energy supply derives from fossil fuels [1], whose
combustion is the first source of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission,
recognized by the scientific community as the most important driver of the
global warming. In order to face this issue, that represents a threat for the
whole humankind, the IPCC (Intergovernmental panel on climate change)
asserts that a reduction of at least 50% of the global CO 2 emissions with
respect to the 2000 emissions has to be reached within 2050 in order to limit
the long-term temperature rise [2].
The electric power sector is responsible of ca. 42% of CO 2 [3] emissions
thus an intense research activity has been undertaken in order to find
technological solution able to reduce CO2 emissions.
The photosynthetic process is an attractive option for biological fixation of
CO2, making the use of biomass as a low-carbon energy source which can
contribute to greenhouse gases (GHGs) reduction. A great variety of
terrestrial biomass source (e.g. wood, residues
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: andrea.giostri@polimi.it (A. Giostri).
URL: http://www.gecos.polimi.it
microalgae have received a growing attention because of their intrinsic
advantages over terrestrial biomass sources. Microalgae are recognized to
have a great potential in terms of productivity and a low competition with
food crops because of their flexibility about cultivation environment [4]; in
particular, arid areas with high annual insolation, which are not suitable for
agriculture, can be identified as good candidates for algal cultivation. In
addition, seawater or saline groundwater can be used to cultivate microalgae
thus reducing the dependence on the presence of freshwater that, in some
areas, is a limited and valuable source [5]. The last char-acteristic can avoid
the exploitation of terrain for energy crops that can cause to a reduction of
productive lands for food [6].
The majority of the research activity on microalgae is focused on their
potential as primary source for biofuel production [7e14]. Among the other
technological options for their energetic use, microalgae combustion and,
particularly coal-algae cofiring has been pointed out as a near-term, low-risk,
low-cost renewable energy able to reduce the net CO2 emissions [15]; despite
of this, only two studies are available in literature on the subject [16,17].
These studies are mainly focused on the environmental impact [16] or on the
life cycle analysis (LCA) [17] of the coal-algae cofiring option, but do not
give any information in terms of NER and LCOE

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2016.04.033
0960-1481/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
450 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Acronyms OP optimistic scenario

PB power block
BS base case scenario PBR photobioreactor
EROI Energy Return of Investment PS pessimistic scenario
FGD flue gas desulphurization RWP raceway pond
GHG greenhouse gases
HHV higher heating value Subscripts
IEA International Energy Agency AF Ash free
IPCC Intergovernmental panel on climate change AR as received
LCOE levelized cost of electricity DW dry weight
LCA life cycle analysis e electric
LHV lower heating value Inv investment
MEC major equipment cost Th thermal
NER net energy ratio in inlet
NPV Net Present Value out outlet
O&M operation and maintenance

estimate. The present work tries to fulfill this gap with a more exhaustive
analysis of the cofiring option and with the proposal of a smart and innovative
system layout that, differently from layouts presented in Refs. [16,17], is
characterized by the use of flue gas not only as CO2 source but as heat source
to dry microalgal biomass.
In particular, the study here presented investigates an open pond
microalgal culture system integrated with a coal fired power plant in which
the produced biomass is co-fired in the coal plant boiler. An extensive
literature survey was conducted in order to identify a consistent set of
assumptions for each system component.
An Excel spreadsheet is used to model the whole system: the mass and
energy balances are solved for each plant component and the overall
performances are evaluated in terms of net energy re-turn and in terms of
carbon dioxide emissions. In order to assess the level of commercialization of
the chosen solution, which is considered a viable way to overcome some of
the limits to com-mercial scale reported in Ref. [18], a preliminary economic
analysis is performed to estimate the biomass cost and the cost of the
produced electricity with biomass cofiring.
A sensitivity analysis on the most important input parameters of the
culture system is finally conducted in order to recognize their impact on the
performance, on the costs and on the emissions of the plant.
of the culture system avoiding energy purchase from the grid and the direct
exploitation of culture output eliminating the need of biomass transport
system. In addition, direct combustion of microalgal biomass uses all the
biomass energetic content thus resulting in an advantage if compared, for
example, to biofuel production that exploits only the lipid fraction.
Nevertheless, it is worth to notice that land availability and a suitable
climate for microalgae growth reduce the set of locations suitable for this
solution.
The proposed system considers a high level of integration be-tween a
coal-fired power plant and an algal farm: the CO 2 con-tained in the coal plant
flue gases is used for the algal cultivation, a fraction of the low-temperature
heat available in the flue gas is used for the biomass drying and finally the
produced biomass is co-fired in the coal plant steam boiler.
The chosen coal plant has an electric power of about 760 MW, while the
algal farm is supposed to have 500 ha size in order to cover about 1% of the
boiler heat input, without affecting the boiler combustion and overall
efficiencies. The selected coal plant allows firing microalgae exploiting the
high conversion efficiency typical of large scale power plants.
A schematic of the whole system showing the main components and mass
fluxes is reported in Fig. 1 (stream ID-numbers are reported).

2. Integrated system layout
As underlined by Ref. [19], locating an algal farm near a CO 2 source (as
in case of a coal-fired plant) leads to CO2 transport and infrastructure cost
savings and makes available a source of thermal power that can be used to dry
biomass and to warm the ponds during cold periods (the use of waste heat
from the condenser can be an alternative option as shown in Ref. [20]). As
regards the co-combustion of coal and microalgae, no issue seems to obstacle
the combustion process and the small size of microalgae (3e30 mm) avoids
the pulverizing/chopping process common to other biomass feedstock
[21e23]. Although the techno-economic analysis of en-ergy systems based on
microalgal biomass combustion has been near ignored, a vast scientific
literature on combustion mechanism has been produced. It is worth noticing
how an intense research activity has been devoted to investigate microalgae
combustion process (particularly with Thermogravimetric analysis) taking
into account blend with coal [24e29]. The proximity of a power block makes
available both the possibility to sustain the energy demand
After the flue gas treatment unit, a fraction of the flue gases is diverted to
the drying process (stream 6); once flue gases are cooled down during drying
process (stream 7), they are mixed with the main flue gas flux before entering
the desulphurization unit (deSOx FGD).
Downstream the desulphurization unit, the required fraction of flue gases
to be fed at the algal system (primarily to supply CO 2) is extracted and
properly cooled with an auxiliary cooler to reach a suitable temperature level
for microalgae growth (stream 9), whereas the reaming fraction of flue gases
(stream 8) is sent to stack. An auxiliary blower to overcome the pressure
losses of the flue gases distribution system is inserted before the auxiliary
cooler.
The output produced by cultivation system is represented by a mixture of
water and algal biomass (stream 1) that is initially thickened in a flocculation
pond whose outputs are the thickened biomass-water flux (stream 2) and
water with a small fraction of biomass (stream 12). Before entering the drying
process, a further dewatering is made through centrifugation (stream 3); the
centri-fugation wastewater (stream 13) is mixed together with the
 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Fig. 1. Proposed integrated system layout. Grey path represents flue gases, green path represents algal biomass while blue and light blue stands for water streams. (For inter-pretation of the references
to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

wastewater recovered from the flocculation pond (stream 12) and recirculated
towards the cultivation system. The dried biomass (stream 4) is finally cofired
at the coal plant boiler.
It is worth underlining that nutrients and make up water are necessary to
guarantee the system mass balance.
In the following, the main characteristics of the coal plant and of each
component of the algal culture systems are presented together with the main
assumptions needed for the components modeling.
in the assessment of the integrated system performance are reported.
The selected coal plant performance is assumed not to change significantly
if a small fraction (about 1%, as it will be shown in the following) of the fuel
input is switched from coal to algae. The effect of the fuel switch on the flue
gases composition is also neglected.
2.2. Algal farm

2.1. Coal plant
The selected plant is an Advanced Super Critical (ASC) coal-fired power
plant without carbon capture, representing the state of the art of the ASC
plants, according to [30].
In Table 1, the main characteristics of the selected plant needed
All the components required to produce the microalgal biomass constitute
the so-called “algal farm”. In particular, the cultivation system, which
guarantees the proper microalgae growth, is coupled with both a biomass
harvesting and dewatering section that pro-cess the culture output in order to
reach the standard condition to be sent to the boiler.

Table 1
Main characteristics of the reference coal-based power plant.

ASC coal power plant

Parameter Symbol Value Unit of measurement Ref.

P
Net power output el_PB_coal 758.6 MWe [30]
h
Net electric efficiency el 45.25 % e
1
Low heating value of coal as received LHV 25.17 MJ kg e
Q
Thermal power of boiler (LHV) LHV 1676.5 MWt e
m 1
Coal mass flow coal 66.61 kg s e
1

CO2 emissions from combustion y

CO2 20.56 kgCO2 kg ue-gas
e
 fl
m 1
Flue gas mass flow flue-gas 781 kg s e
T
Temperature of flue gas (@recuperator inlet) in_rec 130 C e
T
Temperature of flue gas (@stack) stack 85 C e
e 1
Specific electric energy CO2 emission CO2 770.95 g kWhe e
452 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

2.2.1. Microalgae selection and characteristics Table 3

Tetraselmis suecica, a marine green flagellate, is selected as algal strain Tetraselmis suecica elemental mass composition (dry biomass).

because of its high productivity and adaptability to different pH, salinities and Elemental composition
temperatures. These characteristics make Tetra-selmis suitable for outdoor
Element y [%] yAF [%]
cultivations, particularly in open sys-tems [31]. Referencing to [32], the
C 48.20 56.44
optimal growth temperature of H 6.63 7.76
1
Tetraselmis suecica is around 34 C and the optimal salinity is 35 g l . O 21.10 24.71
N 8.74 10.23
P 0.21 0.24
In Table 2 the supposed biochemical composition of the selected
S 0.51 0.59
microalgal strain are reported in terms of mass fractions [33], expressed on Ash 14.6 17.1
dry basis with and without ashes. For each biomass constituent, a reference
molecule and a higher heating value “HHV” is reported according to [34].
1 1 2 1
approximately 15 tDW ha y [44] (about 4.1 gDW m d ), microalgae
Once the biochemical composition and the HHV of each biomass
guarantee about four times more biomass yield; their higher LHV content
component are known, the microalgae energy content can be estimated in 1 1
terms of both HHV and lower heating value “LHV”. In particular, the HHV is (approximately 20.7 MJ kg vs 15 MJ kg for traditional culture [44]), leads
1 1 2 1
equal to 22.42 [MJ kgDW ] whereas the LHV is 20.69 [MJ kgDW ]. to a specific energy yield (J m d ) 5.6 times higher for microalgae. On the
other hand, microalgae biomass production needs higher energy inputs than
Taking into account the information summarized in Table 2, the elemental common energetic culture, reducing the effective energy yield. In the
following sections, a detail analysis to identify the impact of auxiliary
composition of the microalgae can be computed as re-ported in Table 3.
processes on energetic figures of the proposed solution is performed.

2.2.2. Cultivation system
Although a huge variety of photobioreactors (PBR) has been studied and
designed [35], the commercial technology for micro-algae culturing is
represented by the open raceway-ponds (RWP) [36e38], that was thus
selected for the present study. As reported in Ref. [39] and [5], the open pond
technology is more attractive than PBR for commercial scale applications
because of lower in-vestment and operation cost, longer durability and
simplicity derived from a long-time experience that can be traced back till the
beginning of 19th century [40]. All these characteristics lead to conclude that,
nowadays, PBR is not the optimal solution to pro-duce low value products as
in case of bioenergy [41]. Nevertheless, it is worth underlining how the
development of PBR technology could represent an attractive solution to
produce high value products (i.e. pigments etc.).
2.2.2.1. Operation. In order to define the RWP performance, both the biomass
productivity and the auxiliaries energy consumptions have to be defined. The
culture areal productivity is the parameter commonly used in literature to
identify a specific algal culture. The productivity is strongly influenced by
different factors (i.e. algal, strain, ambient conditions, culture system etc.) that
increase the level of uncertainness of the modeling [42]. In addition, the algal
productivity is often referred to controlled conditions that are far from
operating conditions of a large scale cultivation system [43]. Because the
current study deals with an energetic evaluation, the areal productivity value
has to take into account the yearly ambient conditions variation thus requiring
the adoption of a proper mean value as suggested by Ref. [43]. For sake of
simplicity, the pond operation is considered continuous during the year,
assuming the biomass production spread uniformly over the residence time.
Compared to common energetic culture, that have a productivity of
As stated by Ref. [45], water evaporation from culture pond has a strong
impact from both an environmental and economic point of view; in order to
estimate approximately the amount of evaporated water the analogy with lake
evaporation is considered [46].
For sake of simplicity, the energy consumption related to the harvest
pump and the water pump is modeled with a constant value specific to pond
area. Table 4 shows the main assumptions related to pond operation
parameters.
2.2.2.2. Mixing. The proper mixing of the algal broth is mandatory to achieve
high biomass productivity; in particular, the main goals of the mixing can be
resumed in i) decrease of the reciprocal shading of microalgae, ii) uniform
distribution of nutrients, iii) avoid thermal stratification and iv) avoid the
precipitation of dead cellules on the bottom of pond thus limiting the presence
of favorable conditions for microorganisms proliferation.
Among the different technical solutions for the pond mixing [50,51], the
most common solution resides in the adoption of paddle-wheels as
demonstrated by several operating plants [38,52e54].
In order to have a correct estimate of the paddle-wheel con-sumption,
which represents an important share of the algal ener-getic input, it is
necessary to choose a reference raceway-pond that is used as elemental unit of
the algal farm.
In Table 5, the main assumptions needed to estimate the mixing energy
demand of the raceway-pond, are reported.
In order to estimate the power required for mixing the algal broth, the total
head loss has to be computed taking into account both friction and localized
head losses. The friction losses are estimated with the Manning's relation,
commonly adopted for ponds design [47,56]:

Table 2
Tetraselmis suecica biochemical analysis (mass compositions are reported on dry basis).

Reference molecules
1
Component y [%] yAF [%] Molecule HHV [MJ kgdry ] Ref.
CH O N S
Proteins 53.0 62.1 1.56 0.3 0.26 0.006 23.9 [34]
CH O
Carbohydrates 13.3 15.6 1.67 0.83 17.6 e
CH O N P S
Lipids 19.1 22.4 1.83 0.17 0.0031 0.006 0.0014 36.4 e
Ash 14.6 e e 0.0 e
 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Table 4
Assumptions related to pond productivity and auxiliaries consumption.

Pond

Parameter Symbol Value Unit of measurement Ref.

AP
Maximum areal productivity max 25 g m2d1 [47]
Mean areal productivity AP 16.6 g m2d1 e
Residence time RT 4 d e
Evaporation rate of pond water LER 0.0027 md1 [46]
P 2
Specific power consumption of harvest pump harvest_pump 0.0625 We m [48,49]
Specific power consumption of water pump P 2
water_pump 0.079 We m e

Table 5 and thus most of the large scale cultivation systems rely on an external source
Dimensions of the reference single pond.
characterized by a higher CO2 concentration [59,60]. Flue gases from a coal-
Pond characteristics fired power plant represent a good carbon dioxide source, in particular, they
Parameter Symbol Value Unit of measurement Ref. are available at no cost and are characterized by a sufficient high CO2
Length
a concentration (14% vol, wet) [30]. As reported in Ref. [19], different studies
L 930 m [47]
Canal width W 43 m e state that NOx and SO2 represent an additional source of nutrients that can
Depth D 0.2 m e
Area A ~8 ha e
enhance pond productivity [61,62]; the effect of NOx and SO2 on algal
Volume Vol 16,000 m
3
e productivity is neglected.
Hydraulic radius R 0.198 m e As regards the carbonation system, two technologies are avail-able: i)
Manning friction coefficient n 0.018 s m 1/3 e active system with a carbonation sump equipped with a gas diffuser [47,63],
K-loss factor of bend K 2.5 [ ] e
1 ii) passive system implementing a PVC sheet above part of the pond in order
Mean circulation velocity v 0.2 ms e
Volume flow rate V 1.72 m3 s 1 e to create a high CO2 concentration at-mosphere and reducing the CO2 vented
Paddle wheel efficiency hwheel 42 % [47,55]
in the environment [64]. The CO2 concentration in flue gas makes the passive
a Measured along the mean trajectory. transport so-lution not feasible because it would require an excessive amount
of covered area thus indexing towards the active system solution.

L Once the microalgae carbon content yC and the biomass mass

2 2
flow rate malgae pond are known, the ideal CO2 mass flow rate sent to the pond
is calculated with the following expression:
h vn 4 (1) MM
CO2
f ¼ R3
The localized head loss can be ascribed with good approxima-tion to the m ¼m y
four bends whose effect is taken into account through the localized head loss CO2 pond algae pond C MMC (4)
coefficient K:
2
v where MMCO2 and MMC stand for the molar mass of carbon dioxide
h
loc
¼K
2g (2) 1 1
(44 kg kmol ) and carbon (12 kg kmol ) respectively.
It is worth to notice that a CO 2 fraction fed to the pond is not fixed by the
microalgae but vented; in order to quantify the fraction of CO2 effectively
absorbed by the algal biomass the CO2 uptake efficiency hCO2 is defined as in
Refs. [49,65]:
m
CO2 pond effective

h ¼ m
hf þ hloc CO2 CO2 pond fl (5)
P ¼ gr V h where m represents the CO
paddle broth wheel (3) CO2 pond effective 2 mass ow that is
effectively absorbed by the algal biomass.
The specific mixing power consumption for the reference pond As underlined in Ref. [66], the uptake efficiency is strongly
1
presented in Table 5 is approximately equal to 1 kW ha : this value influenced by different operating parameters (e.g. broth pH, bub-
is in accordance to typical values reported in literature [43,47,56]. bles dimension, sump depth, CO2 concentration). In Refs. [67,68],
both dealing with flue gas feeding in algal pond, the CO2 uptake
efficiency is considered to be in the range 80%e90%. In order to
2.2.3. Nutrients
follow a conservative approach an uptake efficiency of 80% is
The efficient growth of microalgae is constrained to the avail-
chosen.
ability of light, water, nutrients and carbon dioxide source. As
The flue gas exiting the coal-boiler need to be distributed to the
underlined in Ref. [57], light and water availability that depend on ponds with a specific piping network as shown in Fig. 2. The flue
the plant location play a fundamental role in the culture produc-
 gas mass flow sent to cultivation system can be computed as:
tivity: for the present study, a generic location with a relatively high
level of solar irradiation is selected in order to guarantee the target
m
CO2 pond effective

m ¼ y
productivity (see Table 4). flue gas pond CO2 flue Gas (6)

2.2.3.1. Carbon dioxide feeding. Carbon dioxide is the main nutrient required For the piping network, polyethylene pipes are considered [69] because of
by microalgae and it has to be fed into the pond from an external source. The their resistance to corrosion caused by acid condenses.
carbon dioxide content in ambient air, about 400 ppm [58], is too low to In order to estimate the power needed by blowers to distribute the flue gas,
guarantee high algal productivity rates some assumptions related to the piping network have
454 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Fig. 2. Schematic of the piping network for flue gas distribution to the algal ponds.

Table 6
Assumptions about flue gas piping network.

Flue gas piping network

Parameter Symbol Value Unit of measurement Ref.

v 1
Velocity of flue gas inside the pipe flue-gas 20 ms [36,70]
Absolute roughness of pipe ε 1.5E-6 m [71]
P
Localized pressure drop (carbonation sump) D loc_distr 0.17 bar [47]
h
Blowers isentropic efficiency is 86.6 % [72]
h
Blowers mechanical-electric efficiency el-mech 93.1 % e
N
No sections of algae farm sez 4 e e

to be done as presented in Table 6. nitrogen and phosphorus in particular, have to be supplied to the algal pond.
Flue gas temperature and pressure allow it to be treated as an ideal The main sources of nitrogen are ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3), urea
mixture with known mass composition [30]; thermophysical properties (i.e. (CO[NH2]2) and ammonium sulfate ((NH4)2SO4) while the phosphorus is fed
density, specific heat, specific heat ratio, viscosity) are calculated by means of through the addition of TSP (Triple Super Phosphate) (Ca(H 2PO4)2$H2O)
1
NASA polynomials [73] based on JANAF tables data [74]. Flue gas [80,81].
temperature and pressure, at pond inlet (stream 9 in Fig. 1), are assumed to be It is important to underline that the use of fertilizers for algae cultivation
equal to 35 C and 101,325 Pa respectively. directly competes with agriculture thus requiring, in particular for fertilizers
based on phosphorous that is classified as a non-renewable resource [82], an
The pressure drop is computed with the Darcy-Weisbach rela-tion [75] as efficient supply to the culture or switching to alternatives source as
a function of the friction factor “f”, calculated with the Swamee-Jain's wastewater, farm manure or digestate from biogas reactors [83].
equation [76,77], of the piping length ðLpipeÞ and diameter (Dpipe) and of the
flue gases properties: As reported in literature [84], the required fertilizers show a strong
dependence both on algal strain and specific growth con-ditions. Here a
L v2 simplified approach is considered: once the micro-algae composition is known
pipe flue gas
D r yi (see Table 3), for assumed uptake
DPf ¼ f pipe flue gas 2 (7) efficiency huptake, the amount of required fertilizers is estimated for the i-th
As underlined by Ref. [78], blowers power consumption is computed with nutrient as:
the following relation, where characteristic blower efficiency are estimated m y
® algae pond i
with Thermoflex [72], a commercial code suited to estimate power plant
components performance: mi ¼
huptake (9)
g1
c T P þDP þDP 3
P m p flue gas in 2 in loc distr f g 1 Beside the beneficial effect on culture productivity, the addition

blower flue gas pond hh P of nitrogen and phosphorous causes an indirect increase of the
¼ is el mech 4 in 5 primary energy consumption and GHG emissions (i.e. CO2, nitrous
(8) oxide, methane etc.) related to the upstream fertilizer synthesis
processes [85].
In Table 7, fertilizer uptake efficiency, the primary energy con-
sumption and the specific equivalent carbon dioxide emissions
2.2.3.2. Fertilizers. In analogy with terrestrial agriculture, the sup-
ply of external nutrients (i.e. chemical fertilizers) has a strong
impact on both the productivity and economic performance of the 1

The phosphorous content in TSP is commonly identified by the P2O5 mass

algal farm [79]. Thus, in addition to carbon dioxide, other nutrients, fraction that is equal to 46%.
 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Table 7
Fertilizers uptake efficiency, specific primary energy consumption and CO 2 emission related to synthesis of fertilizers used in microalgae farm.

Fertilizers

Parameter Symbol Value Unit of measurement Ref.

h
Uptake efficiency uptake 1.0 e [86]
Primary energy consumption related to nitrogen based fertilizer Primary 1
EN 49.17 GJ tN [87,88]
E 1
energy consumption related to P2O5 P2O5 15.47 GJ tP2O5 e
e 1
CO2eq emissions related to nitrogen based fertilizer CO2eq CO2_N 6099 kgCO2_eq tN e
emissions related to P2O5 e 1
CO2_P2O5 1020.3 kgCO2_eq tP2O5 e

related to fertilizers manufacturing are reported. mx

3 3 algae m3Cout centr
h ¼h h ¼ mx mC
2.2.4. Harvesting and drying harvest flocc centr 1 1 algae ¼ 1 in flocc (10)
2.2.4.1. Harvesting. The biomass coming from the raceway-pond has to be As reported in the previous table, the centrifuge power con-sumption is
separated from the culture broth. The low biomass den-sity and its small size expressed by a value specific to the processed volume rate:
(ca. 13 mm [32]) represent the main challenges to be faced by the harvesting
and dewatering processes. In this study, a specific harvesting system has to be
designed in order to fulfill both the concentration and separation efficiency Eharvest ¼ Ecentr þ Eflocc ¼ EfloccV1 þ Ecentr V2 (11)
requirements.

The chosen solution is made of two subsequent steps: i) floc-culation and

ii) centrifugation. The liquid blow down is recirculated to the ponds, reducing
the water and fertilizer consumption. In accordance with [49], a bio-
flocculation process is considered in order to avoid the use of expensive
chemical flocculants and to ease the recycling of algal broth.
Density of microalgae is similar to that of culture broth (i.e. density
3 of the applied technology has a strong impact on the energetic perfor-mance
Chlorella ¼ 1070 kg m [89]), thus requiring high centrif-ugal forces to
separate biomass and consequent high-energy con-sumption [90]. As regards
the centrifuge technology, which is the most commonly used technology for
harvesting microalgae [91], a disk bowl centrifuge [92] is identified as the
best solution to treat the stream coming from the flocculation process reaching
an output concentration of 15% [93]. The alternative can be the use of a
decanter centrifuge technology that is able to reach an higher concentrated
output (e.g. 22%). Nevertheless the energy con-sumption is estimated to be
approximately 8 folds higher that disk bowl centrifuge [91,94] thus excluding
this technology from the treatment microalgal biomass for energy production
(i.e. cofiring, biofuel).
In this study, Westfalia SSE-400 [95] is chosen [96,97]; due to the
limitation in volume flow a modular system is considered.
Table 8 presents the main assumptions implemented for the definition of
separation and energetic performance of the har-vesting system.
The harvest efficiency, defined as the ratio of the algae mass flow at the
centrifuge outlet (stream 3 in Fig. 1) to the algae mass flow at the flocculation
pond inlet (stream 1 in Fig. 1), is computed as the product of the separation
efficiencies of the separated processes:
2.2.4.2. Drying. As shown in Table 8, the biomass exiting the centrifugation
process is characterized by a high water content that makes its combustion
unfeasible. A further drying step is needed to decrease the water content from
a value of 85% to 10% as suggested by Refs. [100,101]. The water removal
from the algal biomass is an energy intensive process that represents an
obstacle for the ener-getic use of microalgae [93]. For this reason, the choice
of the whole system.
The presence of a large-scale power plant allows a smart inte-gration of
the drying process exploiting the availability of hot combustion gases; in
particular, the flue gas temperature at the inlet of recuperator (stream 5 in Fig.
1) is 130 C thus representing a heat source suitable for the drying process
[102,103]. In particular, the availability of flue gas thermal energy allows
avoiding addition of fossil fuel combustion, leading to a better thermal
efficiency. Comparison among different dryer technologies shows how belt
dryer [102] is one of the technologies with the lowest energy de-mand [104]
and the most suitable for heat recovery from flue gas; in particular, belt driers
are commonly used for sludge treatment that presents some analogy with the
treatment of algal paste [105]. In addition, it is worth noticing that the dried
microalgae to be sent to the boiler has not to fulfill quality constraints as in
food industry, thus avoiding the use of expensive systems like spray driers or
freeze dryers that are recognized to be not economically feasible for low price
products [106].
The drying process is assumed adiabatic, i.e. flue gas enthalpy is assumed
constant during the humidification process. The amount of

Table 8
Harvesting system main assumptions.

Harvesting

Parameter Symbol Value Unit of measurement Ref.

C a 1
Concentration at flocculation inlet (stream 1, Fig. 1) in_flocc 0.00033 kgdry kgtot
C 1
Concentration at flocculation outlet (stream 2, Fig. 1) out_flocc 0.02 kgdry kgtot [91,94]
C 1
Concentration at centrifuge outlet (stream 3, Fig. 1) out_centr 0.15 kgdry kgtot [91]
Separation efficiency of bio-flocculation hflocc 95.0 % [49]
h
Separation efficiency of centrifuge centr 95.0 % [96,98]
Recirculation fraction R 0.95 e e
3
Specific energy consumption of centrifuge Еcentr 0.8 kWh m [95]
E 3 [99]
Specific energy consumption of flocculation flocc 0 kWh m
a The pond biomass concentration is computed with the assumptions reported in Tables 4 and 5.
456 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Table 9
Assumptions of biomass drying system.

Drying

Parameter Symbol Value Unit of measurement Ref.

C 1
Concentration at dryer outlet out_drying 0.90 kgDW kgwet [107,108]
Relative humidity of flue gas (@outlet) fout_flue-gas 95.0 % e
P
Pressure drop of flue gas D flue-gas_dryer 0.5 kPa [107]
h
Hydraulic fan efficiency hydr_fan_drying 70.0 % [72]
h
Mechanical-electric fan efficiency mech_el_fan_drying 94.0 % e
a 1
Mechanical consumption Еmech_belt 0.025 kWh kgH20 [105]
a Energy consumption specific to evaporated water.

flue gas to be fed at the dryer and their exit temperature is calculated with the m LHV
methodology presented in Refs. [107,108]. Table 9 summa-rizes the main algae fired algae
assumptions of the biomass drying system. Q
The electric energy consumption of the drying system due to the fan %cofiring ¼ LHV (13)
needed to circulate the flue gas and the mechanical drive to guarantee the The low cofiring fraction allows assuming that the boiler per-formance
does not change significantly with respect to a 100% coal feeding, as
movement of the conveyor is computed as follows:
anticipated in Section 2.1.
P ¼E m
dryer mech belt H2O ev
3.2. Stream
DP
flue gas dryer
þ mflue gas dryer Considering the plant layout shown in Fig. 1, the stream prop-erties, in
rflue gashhydr fan dryer hmech el fan dryer
terms of mass flow, temperature and compositions of the most representative
(12)
streams are reported in Table 11.
where mH2O ev represents the water mass flow evaporated in belt
drying process. 3.3. Global balances

In addition to the power block section and the algal farm pre-viously
3. Results
described, the global balances take into account the coal and fertilizers
upstream production processes. Fig. 3 shows a schematic of the mass and
In this section, the global results obtained from the sizing and from the
energy fluxes used in the global balance.
solution of the energy and mass balance of each compo-nent are presented.
The main results obtained from the sizing of the microalgal farm are reported
3.3.1. Energy
in Section 3.1, the properties of each stream entering/exiting each component
As described in the previous sections, microalgal biomass pro-duction
are presented in Section 3.2, the overall energy balance and carbon dioxide
balance are re-ported in Section 3.3 and the main economic figures are requires a direct energy input (i.e. algal farm auxiliaries electricity
reported in Section 3.4. All the obtained system results are influenced by the consumption) and an indirect one (i.e. primary energy of fertilizer synthesis).
components' performances assumptions that in literature can vary in very
Fig. 4 summarizes the algal farm auxiliaries electric consump-tion (top)
wide ranges and that in several cases are strongly depen-dent on the selected
and the primary energy input shares (bottom) that characterize the microalgal
algal species: for this reason a series of sensitivity analyses on the main input
assumptions is finally re-ported in Section 3.5. culture; the primary energy input is compared with the primary energy output
related to the algal biomass.

Focusing on electricity auxiliaries, pumping of algal broth is responsible

3.1. Microalgae culturing
In Table 10, the main results related with the microalgae pond culture,
whose total area is set to 500 ha, are reported.
The cofiring fraction, defined as the ratio of the energy intro-duced with
the biomass and the total fuel energy entering the boiler Q LHV (see Table 1),
is equal to 1.05%:
of the highest electricity consumption (31.5% of total) thus showing how an
increase of microalgae concentration helps to reduce the processed mass flow.
The hydrodynamic behavior of raceway pond, as described in Section 2.2.2,
requires 24.5% of total auxiliaries electricity, nevertheless the reduction of
this energy fraction can be achieved by the technological advancement in the
mixing process or by changing pond hydraulic characteristics (i.e. velocity,
depth).

Table 10
Main characteristics of the microalgae farm.

Algal production

Symbol Value Unit of measurement

Total pond area

Number of ponds
Mass flow biomass sent to coal boiler
Total CO2 mass flow fed to ponds
Total CO2 outgassed from ponds
Nitrogen in fertilizer mass flow
P2O5 in fertilizer mass flow
 A
tot 500 ha
#
ponds 63 e
m 1
algae_fired 0.87 kgDW s
m 1
CO2_ponds 2.13 kg s
m 1
CO2_outgassing 0.426 kg s
1
mN 0.084 kg s
m 1
P2O5 0.005 kg s
 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Table 11
Resume of main streams properties of the cofiring plant.

Stream of cofiring plant

1
Stream Mass flow rate [kg s ] Temperature [ C] Mass composition [%]
N O
CO2 2 2 SO2 H2O AlgaeDW
1 2893.52 30 e e e e 99.967 0.033
2 45.81 30 e e e e 98.000 2.000
3 5.80 30 e e e e 85.000 15.000
4 0.97 30 e e e e 10.000 90.000
5 766.90 128 20.878 70.764 4.092 0.086 4.180 e
6 130.53 128 20.878 70.764 4.092 0.086 4.180 e
7 135.37 55 20.132 68.236 3.946 0.083 7.603 e
8 770.63 80 20.556 69.453 4.029 0.022 5.941 e
9 10.37 30 20.556 69.453 4.029 0.022 5.941 e
10 297.75 15 e e e e 100.000 e
11 2743.3 30 e e e e 99.942 0.058
12 2847.7 30 e e e e 99.998 0.002
13 40.01 30 e e e e 99.885 0.115
14 144.38 30 e e e e 99.942 0.058

Fig. 3. Main fluxes (coal, electricity and primary energy equivalent CO2) that defines the global system.

Besides the energy saving due to the use of flue-gas waste heat, it is worth
to notice how the drying process has a certain impact on system energetic
performance because of requested electricity by the circulation fan and belt
movement. The flue gas distribution in the algal farm accounts for the 14% of
total electricity consumption thus underlining that an accurate sizing of both
the piping network and spargers could help to increase the energy efficiency
of the process. The relative small electric energy consumption of the
centrifugation process is due to the assumption of a first low energy-
demanding process that concentrates algal broth thus reducing the mass flow
processed by the centrifuge.
In order to express the electric energy consumption in terms of primary
energy use the net electric efficiency of the power block (Table 1) is used as
conversion factor. Fig. 4 (bottom) shows how nutrients production is very
demanding in terms of primary energy representing the 46% of total primary
energy input to the algal farm.
In order to quantify the energetic sustainability of the process, the “Net
Energy Ratio” (NER) (or “Energy Return of Investment” (EROI)), defined as
the ratio of the energetic output of the algal farm (i.e. LHV content) to the
sum of non-renewable primary energy inputs required to produce the algal
biomass [100], is computed:
m LHV
algae algae
E growth and reproduction capacity. Cardoon LHV is of about 15 MJ kg , with an annual areal
NER ¼ input
As it is possible to notice from Fig. 4 (bottom), the primary en-ergy
contained in the biomass is greater than the primary energy input (NER ¼
1.915): the proposed integrated system thus is ener-getically sustainable. An
alternative way to assess energy input impact (useful for comparison with
different energy crops) is rep-resented by the estimation of a “Net” LHV that,
12
in our case, is equal to approximately 10.0 MJ kg . The obtained microalgae
NER is significantly lower than the one attainable with other energy crops:
3
Cynara cardunculus (cardoon) cultivation for example, is charac-terized by a
NER in the range 10e15 [109,110] thus underlining how energy input
requested by microalgal cultivation system strongly penalizes this kind of
biomass.
3.3.2. Carbon dioxide
The growing interest on the climatic change issues leads to consider the
carbon dioxide emissions related to the investigated technology [111,112]. In
particular, the overall integrated system emissions are compared with the
emissions of the reference coal plant (see Table 1).
2 LHValgae,net can be computed as follows: LHV algae,net ¼ LHValgae Einput/malgae.
3 Cardoon is recognized as a promising energy crops thanks to low energy input, rapid
1
1
(14) productivity is around 15 t ha [109].
 458 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Fig. 4. Auxiliaries electricity consumption (top), comparison between primary energy input and primary energy output (bottom).

The total carbon dioxide emissions are obtained as the sum of the CO 2
emissions associated to coal production upstream pro-cesses (i.e. mining,
milling etc.), assumed equal to 16.5% of the CO2 emission of combustion
process (see Table 1) [87], to the com-bustion process itself, to the pond
outgassing and to the upstream processes for fertilizers production:

þm
CO2 outgassing e e
coal algae
e
coal

All the CO2 emissions for the two cases are reported in Table 12. It is
possible to notice how the plant hybridization with algal feed leads to a specific
CO2 emission reduction of about 0.48%: this reduction, as expected, is lower
than the cofiring fraction (1.05%) due to the extra emissions related to the algal
farm operation.
GHG saving is a parameter useful to evaluate the impact of switching from
coal to microalgal biomass implied by the adoption of the proposed system; in
particular, it is computed with the following relation:

m ¼
GHG ¼
CO2 tot
saving

1
where ecoal is the coal plant specific emission (898.15 [gCO2 kWh ]) and ealgae
1
(680.87 [gCO2 kWh ]) is the emission imputable to microalgae (See
equivalent CO2 balance reported in Fig. 3). GHG saving of 24.18% is obtained
thus showing how microalgae culti-vation, although characterized by a
sustainable CO2eq balance, is far from reaching competiveness with other
biomasses; for example, forest residues pellets (EU NG process fuel) have
GHG saving of about 58% [113].

Table 12
CO2 emissions for the integrated cofiring plant and for the reference coal plant.

m þm
CO2 upstream; coal CO2 PB
m
þ CO2 fertilizers

3.4. Economics
In addition to energy performance and CO 2 emissions, it
is important to consider the economic figures the cofiring
plant. The microalgal biomass has been commercially
exploited as source of high value products (i.e. u3,
astaxanthin, b-carotene etc.) that are used in different
industrial sectors (i.e. food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and
aquaculture). As reported in Refs. [114,115], this kind of
cultivations can be economical sustainable because of the
high
the need of presenting an exhaustive list of the economic assumptions when
the cost of microalgae has to be investigated.
In order to figure out the economics of the studied solution, a
comprehensive and easily understandable parameter has to be
(16) identified; in particular, the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is
recognized as fundamental information to measure the competi-tiveness of different
energy generation technologies. The procedure to compute LCOE is taken from IEA
[117,118]: the Net Present Value (NPV) is set to zero varying the kWh price till the costs
over the whole lifetime are balanced as expressed in the following relation:
ðCinvFCR þ O&MÞAtot
LCOE (17)
E
¼ el
where Cinv is the total investment cost specific to total pond area,

(15) 1
market price of the extracted bio-products ranging approximately from 50 US$ kg to
1
100,000 US$ kg [79,114].
On the contrary, the technology considered in this study
is en-ergy oriented (e.g. production of electricity) and the
economic figure needs to be estimated taking into account
cost data found in literature. Ribeiro and Silva [116] reports
an ample literature review about microalgae production cost,
specifically for biofuel synthesis, underlining both the
significant difference in cost predictions among studies and
Reference coal plant Cofiring Variation [%]

Net system electric power [MW] 758.6 756.4 0.30

1 1 1 1
CO2 emissions [kgCO2 s ] [gCO2 kWh ] [kgCO2 s ] [gCO2 kWh ]
Outgassing 0.00 0.00 0.43 2.03 þ
Fertilizers 0.00 0.00 0.52 2.47 þ
PB 162.46 770.95 160.32 763.09 1.02
Upstream coal 26.81 127.21 26.52 126.25 0.76
Total 189.27 898.15 187.73 893.84 0.48
 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Table 13 4 FCR is the interest rate needed to cover the capital cost, a return on debt and equity, and
Economic assumptions for FCR calculation. various other fixed charges [119].
Economic assumptions

Symbol Value Unit of measurement

Share of debt %debt 60 %
Share of equity %equity 40 %
C
Interest rate on debt debt 5 %
C
Return on equity eq 13 %
Insurance p1 1 %
Lifetime n 20 y

O&M represents the operation and maintenance expenditures in the year, E el

is the annual net electric energy obtained from algal biomass and A tot is the
total pond area.
Considering the assumptions reported in Table 13, the FCR (Fixed Charge
4
Rate) is equal to 11.34% (see. Eq. (18)).

n
kdð1 þ kdÞ
FCR p where k
n þ
¼ ð1 þ kdÞ 1 1 d

¼ Cdebt %debt þ Ceq %equity (18)

Due to the lack of large scale microalgal facilities, a wide range of
variability characterizes the prediction of investment cost and O&M [120]; in
particular, it is reasonable to assume that the bigger is the facilities the lower
the specific cost as underlined by Ref. [121], but it is still unclear what is the
trend of this behavior. In addition, inconsistencies among studies are referred
to the type of harvesting method (i.e. centrifuge, filter) and final use of
biomass (i.e. biofuel, digester, combustion) thus making more difficult the
choice cost assumptions specific for the studied system. In this paper, the in-
tegrated plant cost was evaluated from a series of information found in
literature; in particular, Refs. [49,122,123] are identified as reliable
information sources about cost related to algal growth system. Due to
currency difference, all the costs used in the following are expressed in V thus
an exchange rate V/US$ is assumed equal to 1.36.

Table 14 reports the investment cost of the main components, specific to

meaningful quantity, with the reference underlined. It is important to point out
that the integration between the power plant and the algal farm implies that a
part of the power block investment cost has to be allocated to the algal farm
with a share equal to the cofiring fraction.

The annual operation costs of the integrated algal farm are related to
consumables (i.e. fertilizers, water), maintenance, administration and labor.
Table 15 summarizes the operation costs considered for the estimation of the
electricity production cost.
The cost breakdown of both the investment (left) and O&M cost (right) is
shown in Fig. 5. It is possible to notice how the RWP and land occupation are
responsible of approximately 50% of the total investment cost. About the
raceway pond construction, possible cost reduction can be reached by
substituting the PVC liner with a cheaper clay liner (in Ref. [49] a cost
approximately lower than 50% of PVC one seems to be reasonable)
nevertheless this solution can be suitable in location where low permeability
soil is available.
Power block is accountable for the 18% of total investment cost; in
particular, it is worth to remember that the cofiring system makes accessible
the intrinsic advantages in terms of high con-version efficiency and low
specific cost typical of large-scale coal fired power plants.

The most significant operating cost is related to the personnel

needed for the plant operation: this cost, together with the main-tenance cost,
can be reduced in the future thanks to technological improvements and
economy of scale. Water cost spans in a wide range of values that can be
found in literature [127]; the use of cheap water sources (i.e. saline ground
water, seawater) represents an attractive alternative to reduce the cost
associated to water use. Besides the low cost advantage, it is important to
underline that saline water use involves both elevated pond salinity in order to
limit the blowdown and the proximity of the algal farm to sea. Saline
groundwater are located inland and characterized by a var-iable salt content
that reduces the blowdown water, nevertheless, as underlined by Ref. [128],
uncertainty related to water properties (i.e. presence of toxins, ion chemistry)
makes difficult to predict an intense use of this kind of water sources.

Concerning fertilizer, the influence of market price variations is a

parameter that has to be taken into account particularly in situ-ation that
contemplates a worldwide market penetration. As enlightened in Ref. [129],
the synergy with wastewater treatment process can lead to a reduced need of
external fertilizers.
The LCOE related to the electricity fraction produced through the algal
1
biomass is equal to 554.4 V MWhe . As a terms of com-parison, the LCOE
of coal power plant with the same characteristics reported in Table 1 is 55.4 V
1
MWhe thus underlining how the competitiveness of the studied technology
has to be strongly enhanced by external interventions with both R&D program
and policy incentives.

In addition, limiting to algal biomass production, an algal biomass cost of

1
0.25 $ kgDW is identified as a threshold cost that guarantees the
1
competiveness between algal oil and petroleum (100 $ barrel [18]). The
1
studied system is characterized by a biomass cost of 1.01 V kgDW , far from
being competitive with the current oil market.

3.5. Sensitivity analysis

Once a description of the obtained results and the relative impact of the
different components on the performance have been analyzed, a series of
sensitivity analyses is performed to evaluate how the main assumptions on
biological and engineering param-eters affect the NER, the emission of CO 2
and the LCOE. With respect to base case scenario (BS) previously reported,
two opposite sce-narios, an optimistic one (OP) and a pessimistic one (PS),
are identified.

In the OP scenario, the biomass productivity is raised up to

1 1
100 tDW ha y , a value attainable in RWP with specifically developed
strains [130], while the CO2 uptake is assumed equal to 1.0, representing the
maximum theoretical limit. In the OP scenario, a significant reduction of
external fertilizer ( 50%) input is considered assuming the use of wastewater
as a source of nutrients with a consequent positive impact on energy
performance and economics; low cost sea water or brackish ground water is
considered available and suitable for microalgae growth without

requesting expensive pretreatment processes, so, as suggested by Ref. [127],

3
its cost is lowered down to 0.022 V m .
Low cost onsite clay is available to line ponds thus halving the cost of
RWP compared to plastic liner option [49]; no seepage is-sues are considered
to be induced by the utilization of clay instead of PVC.

PS scenario considers a biomass productivity reduced till

1 1
41.5 tDW ha y , representative of a plant located in Northern Europe (e.g.
the Netherlands) [131] where solar annual irradiation is limited. A lower CO 2
uptake (0.5), a higher water (þ25%) and RWP (þ25%) costs with respect to
the BS scenarios are also considered. Finally, external fertilizer consumption
is also increased of 10% assuming the presence of inefficient nutrients
transport to
460 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Table 14
Assumptions about investment cost.

Investment costs

Value Unit of measurement Quantity Ref.

a,b 1
High productivity raceway-pond 64.00 kV ha 500 [123]
c 1
Terrain 15.00 kV ha 500 [49,122]
1
Circulation pumps 2.78 kV ha e [123]
1
Piping network 15.20 kV ha e e
1
CO2 feeding system 6.00 kV ha e [123]
1
Paddle wheels 7.20 kV ha e e
1
Electric auxiliaries 19.00 kV ha e [49,122]
d 1
Others 6.70 kV ha e [49,122]
e 3 1 1
Centrifuge separator 6.40 kV (m h ) 164.9 [97]
1
2.11 kV ha
1
Flue gas blowers 2.80 kV kWe 295.7 [72]
1
1.66 kV ha
f 1
Coal fired power plant 0.873 kV kWLHV 17.593 [30]
1
30.73 kV ha
g 1 1
Dryer 10.20 V (kgH2O d ) 417824.1 [124]
1
9.22 kV ha
h
Owner, contingencies, indirect cost 42.0 % MEC e [49]
1
Total investment cost (Cinv) 234.16 kV ha
a Pond covered with cladding in PVC.
b PVC liner is assumed to be 120% times the surface area of the cultivation ponds [45].

c This value can be representative of zone far from cities. In Ref. [123] a land cost of 30 V ha is used.
1

d Buildings, vehicles, roads, electric system.

e Specific to inlet volume flow.
f Specific to the power block output.
g Investment cost specific to evaporated water mass.

h Permitting, construction insurance, legal & administration, construction management, mobilization, contingency [122].

Table 15
Assumptions of annual operating costs.

Operating cost

Value Unit of measurement Quantity Ref.

1
TSP based fertilizer cost 0.47 kV t TSP 292.0 [125,126]
1
0.275 kV ha
1
Nitrogen based fertilizer cost 1.0 kV t N 2428.5 e
1
4.86 kV ha
1
Manpower cost (related to culturing system) 5.3 kV ha 500 [122]
1
Administrative personnel 2.88 kV ha e e
a 3
Water cost 0.35 Vm 8575.2e3 [30]
1
6.0 kV ha
b 1
Operating cost coal fired plant 47.72 kV MW 7.96 e
1
0.76 kV ha
Cost of maintenance (% investment cost of algal farm only) 2 % e [122,123]
4.07
1
Total operating cost (O&M) 24.15 kV ha
a Water cost is referred to treated fresh water.
b Specific to electric power attributable to cofiring fraction.

microalgae. Table 16 summarizes the parameters span considered for the

sensitivity analysis.
 Sensitivity analyses results are reported in the tornado-plots presented in
Fig. 6: the effect of each single parameter variation on CO2 emissions, NER
and LCOE are reported, together with their combined effect. As expected
NER and CO2 emissions (referred to algal electric energy share), are not
influenced by variation of the economic assumptions.
The LCOE is significantly influenced by the biomass produc-tivity and its
combined effect together with all the OP parameters reduces the LCOE to
1
272.8 V MWh : this value would not be sufficient to make microalgae
electricity competitive with tradi-tional technologies. As expected, CO 2
uptake efficiency influences slightly LCOE: a decreased CO 2 uptake implies a
higher CO2 mass flux and consequently higher investment costs (i.e. larger
piping) and operating costs (i.e. compression work). The same conclusion can
be drawn for the NER while, on the contrary, CO2 uptake is
the parameter that mostly influence carbon dioxide emissions; nevertheless an
uptake efficiency of 80% seems not to leave room for relevant technological
improvement. In OP, a great reduction of external fertilizer use has a positive
impact on all the inves-tigated parameters underlining that a “free” source of
fertilizer can increase considerably the attractiveness of the investigated
system.
4. Conclusions
The use of microalgae for electric energy production is consid-ered a
promising technology to fulfill the request of low-carbon emissions energy
necessary to face the global warming effect. Different technologies to exploit
the microalgal energy content are being analyzed by the scientific community
both from an energetic and from an economic point of view; nevertheless
there is no agreement on the best conversion technology underlining the need
 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464

Fig. 5. Investment cost (left) and operating cost (right).

Table 16 combustion in an advanced large scale coal power plant guarantees a high
Selected parameters for the sensitivity analysis.
LHV electric efficiency conversion, iii) the use of flue gas as a CO2 source
Sensitivity analysis avoids energetic penalties related to transport (i.e. pipeline, tanker trucks,
Parameters Value Unit of measurement ships) or pure CO2 extraction (e.g. MEA plant) and iv) drying algal biomass
with flue gas thermal energy is an efficient synergetic alternative to common
OP BS PS
drying processes that require an external thermal input.
1 1
Biomass productivity 100.0 60.8 41.5 tDW ha y
CO2 efficiency uptake 1.0 0.8 0.5 e For the proposed system, the obtained NER is equal to 1.92, a value that
External fertilizer consumption 50 e þ10 %
guarantees an energy harvest greater than the energetic cost needed to
Water cost 0.022 0.35 0.44 Vm3
1 produce the microalgal fuel; this value rises up to
Raceway pond cost 32.0 64.0 80.0 kV ha

Fig. 6. Sensitivity analysis results related to equivalent CO2 emissions (left), NER (center) and LCOE (right).

of further research activity. In the present work, a smart integration of an algal
farm with a large-scale coal fired power plant was investigated: each plant
component was modeled using assump-tions and specific relations derived
from a detailed literature re-view. The considered cofiring system represents
one of the best available solution for an efficient conversion of the microalgae
energy because: i) the whole biomass energy content is used (i.e. biofuel
production exploits the lipid fraction only), ii) the biomass
2.53 if an optimistic set of initial hypotheses is considered. For a large
number of studies available in literature, the lack of infor-mation on the initial
set of hypotheses makes the NER comparison challenging: a wide range of
values is found as reported by Ref. [132]. In Ref. [133], a raw energy
feedstock NER equal to 3 is considered as the minimum threshold that a
modern civilization must achieve in order to sustain itself; nevertheless, at
current development stage, NER is far from being competitive with other
 462 A. Giostri et al. / Renewable Energy 95 (2016) 449e464
[14] M.K. Lam, K.T. Lee, Microalgae biofuels: a critical review of issues,
energy crops (i.e. cardoon) that are characterized by NER value in the range problems and the way forward, Biotechnol. Adv. 30 (2012) 673e690.
10e15. [15] T. Takeshita, Competitiveness, role, and impact of microalgal biodiesel in
In addition, the utilization of microalgal biomass in coal plant reduces the the global energy future, Appl. Energy 88 (2011) 3481e3491.
specific CO2 emissions thus strengthening the envi-ronmental compatibility of
this solution.
The total CO2 emissions are reduced of approximately 0.48% with respect
to the existing coal plant: considering the modest percentage of algal fuel co-
fired in the boiler this value is encour-aging, identifying microalgae cofiring
as a solution able to reduce environmental impact of electricity generation
[113].
The performed economic analysis estimates an investment cost for the
1
investigated system of about 234.16 kV ha . The computed LCOE is equal to
1
554.4 V MWh , while a set of more optimistic hypotheses would further
1
lower the LCOE down to 273 V MWh ; both results are quite discouraging
and far from being competitive with traditional electricity generation
technologies. A strong sup-port policy is mandatory to encourage investment
in research and in the development of new technological solutions able to
dramatically cut algal biomass costs. As reported by Ref. [116], the
development of a carbon market represents an interesting scenario where
companies pay to dispose of CO2 thus reducing the pro-duction cost of algal
biomass. Besides synergy with large-scale coal power plants, an alternative
possibility is offered by the integration of algal farms with other high CO 2
emission industrial plants: cement plants [134] can offer similar synergy
opportunities because of the presence of CO2-rich flue gas and thermal waste
energy.

The intense scientific activity and the increasing interest of companies

indexed towards microalgae, demonstrated by the growing number of papers
and experimental activities, denote a ground of optimism that, after the
outcomes of this study, is in the authors' opinion quite exaggerated.

As previously underlined, algae farms proved to be cost competitive when

finalized to extract high market-value compo-nents; the residual biomass can
be burnt to produce electric energy that would thus become a co-product of a
more valuable produc-tion. A synergic approach, which combines the
advantages of the integrated system presented in this paper with the ones
achievable by extracting high market value components from algae before
using their energy content, could be a promising option.

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