Decarbonizing maritime transport will require scalable renewable fuels and robust non-fossil carbon sources that can be supplied at industrial scales. In this context, dilute bio-CO 2 streams from biomass combustion plants represent a potential but underexplored renewable‑carbon resource for e-methanol synthesis. This study evaluates the integrated production of maritime methanol from captured biogenic CΟ 2 and renewable hydrogen using process simulation and techno-economic assessment, employing a biomass CHP plant as real-world reference case to derive generalizable insights. Beyond a plant-specific evaluation, the analysis identifies system-level drivers of viability and competitiveness conditions across synthesis configuration, scale, electricity price, and electrolyser utilization. The results show total production costs of 1.10–1.43 €/kgMeOH, remaining above current fossil methanol bunker prices, with renewable hydrogen dominating the economics. Electricity procurement and electrolyser operation emerge as the principal levers: costs vary strongly with electricity price and improve with higher electrolyser capacity factors. Scale-up reduces unit costs but exhibits diminishing returns beyond the mid-scale range, indicating that infrastructure-enabled deployment could prove impactful than single-site scaling. Overall, the study suggests that biomass combustion plants may function as distributed renewable‑carbon nodes for maritime e-fuel value chains, while highlighting that commercialization depends primarily on low-cost electricity, electrolyser utilization and coordinated carbon‑hydrogen integration strategies. • TEA of multi-reactor methanol synthesis schemes valorizing bio-CO 2 from CHP plant. • e-MeOH costs of 1.10–1.43 €/kg remain above fossil prices with H 2 contributing >70%. • Electricity price and electrolyser utilization identified as key cost-levers. • Cost reduction via scale-up, electrolyser strategies, and competitiveness analysis. • Green-H 2 below 1 €/kg and CO 2 below 70 €/t required for competitive production.
Mitrousis et al. (Fri,) studied this question.