1st power-to-methane demonstration plant in Switzerland

From 2014 to 2017, Switzerland's first power-to-methane plant was built and operated at the IET in Rapperswil. The electricity for the plant was produced with a photovoltaic system. The hydrogen required was produced with electrolysis and the carbon dioxide was extracted directly from the ambient air with a filter system from the company Climeworks. In a catalytic reactor, the chemical compounds were converted into methane gas. This methane could be obtained directly from a vehicle at the integrated filling station. A tankful of a passenger car holds 14 kg of methane. This production requires 62.9 l of water, 38.4 kg of CO2 and 626.6 kWh of electrical energy. The efficiency of this power-to-gas plant thus reached 35 %. The plant was also connected to the local natural gas grid, which meant that the gas could also be fed into the gas grid for storage.

Project document PDF

The IET's 1st power-to-gas plant was realised by a consortium of research funding and industry:

• Audi
• Climeworks
• EWJR
• Energy Lake Zurich Linth
• Natural Gas Regio
• Natural gas, the friendly energy
• SCCER
• Innosuisse