Towards microalgal triglycerides in the commodity markets

Table 1 Results of the techno-economic analysis

	Base case Growth phase: 2.17% PE, 4% TAG w/w Stress phase: 1.48% PE, 24% TAG w/w 30 °C max. culture temperature for cooling Current process technology	Optimized case (1) in Fig. 4) Growth phase: 6% PE, 4% TAG w/w Stress phase: 4.10% PE, 60% TAG w/w 40 °C max. culture temperature for cooling Optimized process technology*
Total costs (M€ year⁻¹)	25.6	28.2
Biomass production (Kton year⁻¹)	3.8	8.7
TAG production (Kton year⁻¹)	0.5	3.7
Biomass cost (€ kg⁻¹)	6.7	3.3
CAPEX (M€ year⁻¹)	9.7	14.4
OPEX (M€ year⁻¹)	16.0	13.9
Initial investment (M€)	140.8	210.1
Produced energy (GWh year⁻¹)	26.0	70.9
Consumed energy (GWh year⁻¹)	22.8	38.0
Net energy ratio	1.1	1.9

* Flow velocity is reduced from 0.45 to 0.3 m s⁻¹ during the day and to 0.23 m s⁻¹ during the night. Harvest is performed by pre-concentration of the biomass by microfiltration followed by centrifugation instead of using centrifugation only; flue gas is used as CO₂ source instead of commercial CO₂; 310 operational days per year instead of 300; reduced number of employees (one manager, one supervisor, eight operators instead of one manager, three supervisors and 28 operators); cleaning reduced from three times to one per year; the fraction of the facility used to prepare inoculum is reduced from 10 to 5% of the growth area

ISSN: 2731-3654