Stefan Puschnigg

• Senior Researcher at Energieinstitut an der Johannes Kepler Universität Linz

The rollout of bio-based technologies is key to achieving sustainability goals in the bioeconomy and renewable energy sectors. Evaluating the contribution of the biorefinery value chain to sustainability goals requires the evaluation of environmental, economic, and social aspects. Most current studies use quantitative metrics focused on environment...

Individuals utilizing Life Cycle Assessment within the emerging field of circular carbon might phrase and understand matters differently, causing ambiguity, due to different educational backgrounds and lacking definitions of central terms. Our research addresses the question, whether misleading or ambiguous terms exist, which impair transparency an...

Heat pumps are considered to be a promising technology to mitigate industrial emissions from steam provision. In this work, an existing scale-up framework for generating life-cycle inventory data for residential heat pumps was tested if applicable to large-scale high-temperature heat pumps. The benchmark was experimental data from existing machiner...

Existing high-temperature heat pumps were investigated by means of life cycle assessment with thermal outputs of 0.19, 0.66, 1.2 and 10 MW. Scale up was performed linearly, due to a better fit than other methods presented in the literature. It was shown that the electricity consumed during the usage phase has a greater impact in the majority of dam...

Biofuels present a strong potential to support the rapid decarbonization of the mobility sector and substitution for fossil fuels. In the aviation sector, sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) are currently produced from various feedstocks and conversion pathways to achieve sustainability targets. A new SAF production pathway has been recently developed...

Citation: Margaritis, N.; Evaggelou, C.; Grammelis, P.; Yiannoulakis, H.; Papageorgiou, P.; Puschnigg, S.; Lindorfer, J. Use of Biomass as Alternative Fuel in Magnesia Sector. Fuels 2022, 3, 642-666. https:// Abstract: The European Union has started a progressive decarbonization pathway with the aim to become carbon neutral by 2050. Energy-intensiv...

Existing district heating networks (DHNs) are often designed for relatively high temperatures, typically 80–120 °C supply and 40–60 °C return. The transformation of such high-temperature DHNs (HTDHNs) into more efficient low-temperature DHNs (LTDHN) and towards the 4th generation DHNs is associated with great complexity and effort. This paper discu...

High temperature DHNs cannot easily be modified and transformed into LTDHNs due to established operating conditions and assets. Therefore, the integration of a low-temperature sub-network (sub-LTDHN) and creating an energy cascade is an opportunity to increase the efficiency and sustainability of the overall network. The sub-LTDHN is integrated int...

Numerous studies suggest that power-to-hydrogen (PtH2) will take a decisive part in future sustainable energy systems. District heating (DH) networks are also assigned a crucial role for the overall efficiency of such. In this regard, heat flows resulting from PtH2 may lead to synergies with the heat supply of DH systems. This paper discusses the p...

In analogy to electricity transmission networks, this paper analyzes the concept of supra-regional district heating networks (SR-DHN), connecting a large number of actors. Using a back-casting approach, a SR-DHN is assumed to exist and thus, implementation challenges, such as economic feasibility and energy losses, are circumvented in the first ste...

Thermal energy storage (TES) can play a key role in increasing primary energy efficiency in the industrial sector. Differences in location-specific conditions lead to differences in TES requirements across companies and to a lack of techno-economic knowhow regarding standardized implementation. This study provides a techno-economic overview of pote...

The opportunity to feed waste heat into a district heating network (DHN) may be essential for its utilization. In the EU and most Member States, there was no specific legislation regulating entry in DHN. The Renewable Energies Directive 2018/2001/EU (RED2) intended to enable third-party renewable or waste heat generators to access DHN. This paper e...

Using industrial waste heat increases primary energy efficiency and may reduce costs. District heating networks are a promising sink as temperatures are relatively low. Usually only the end-use prices are public; but these include network infrastructure costs, maintenance costs etc. The value of a certain kWh fed in, i.e. the current marginal cost...