Performance Analysis of a Renewable-Powered Multi-Gas Floating Storage and Regasification Facility for Ammonia Vessels With Reconversion to Hydrogen

Abstract

Natural gas and renewable energy carriers play critical roles in the energy supply chain due to rising energy consumption demands and a significant shift toward cleaner energy. However, the requirement to liquefy and regasify liquefied natural gas (LNG) and renewable energy carriers for transportation makes the entire process expensive and challenging. Hence, a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) plant provides a solution to the aforementioned problems with the additional benefit of being more affordable, time-efficient, and having less land footprint requirement than the conventional onshore facility. The proposed integrated FSRU in this study, is powered by renewable energy, including solar and ocean thermal energy. The subsystems of integrated FSRU consist of parabolic dish collectors (PDC), Rankine cycle, organic Rankine cycle (ORC), multi-stage flashing (MSF) desalination unit, decomposition, reliquefication, and regasification plants, which provide valuable commodities such as freshwater, electricity, hydrogen, and heating. It can also cater to standard multi-gas harboring vessels for storage and regasification of sustainable energy carriers. The study assesses the performance of the proposed system thermodynamically by analyzing mass, energy, entropy, and exergy balance equations using the engineering equation solver (EES) software. Furthermore, parametric studies were conducted to understand the interlinkage among various variables. The analytical results show that the proposed system is able to produce 1.82 MW of electricity, 2056 kg/day of fresh water, and 338.3 kg/day of hydrogen, achieving an overall system energy efficiency of 32.7% and exergy efficiency of 79.3%. This approach aims to foster energy diversification, enhance energy security, and support the transition toward sustainable energy systems, as well as further the advancement of maritime transport systems.