Utilization of stored hydrogen for power production to overcome intermittency from wind power

Abstract

The energy demand is increasing and due to the enormous amount of pollution that comes from fossil energy it is time to think alternatives. This thesis is about using hydrogen and energy storage to produce power. The system is designed based on an expanding of wind farm at Smøla of 50,13MW, but without doing anything with the grid, which is close to its maximum capacity. The power produced from the year 2015 is used to measure the different component size which is needed. The simulation of the system is used by Simulink with control to handle underproduction and overproduction from the wind farm. The optimal size calculated for the system is, fuel cell with capacity of 4,66MW, a hydrogen storage tank with 79,19 capacity and a alkaline electrolyser with capacity of 50MW . The average hourly increase in one year is 11,59MW where 1,56MW is from the fuel cell production. The average production has been increase from 45,7MW to 58,3MW. The change gave an increase of grid utilization from 29,5% to 37%. The average production has been increase from 45,7MW to 58,3MW which gave a total annual production of 502,202GWh. The utilization of the network capacity is increase by 11,592MWh. However, all of this increased power does not get produced by the fuel cell alone. At times when the wind turbine produces less power than the grid capacity of 155MW, there would not be need to use the system. The actual extra power that comes from fuel cell, electrolysis and hydrogen tank capacity is 1.5578MWh. The cost of the project gives a net loss of 966millions NOK over a time period of 20 years with use of the same power price as 2015. For the project to go out in plus it is necessary to get an power price over 0,899 NOK/kWh