Wind-To-Hydrogen Project: Operational Experience, Performance Testing, and Systems Integration

Abstract

AcknowledgmentsThe authors would like to recognize Rick Farmer, Roxanne Garland, and Jamie Holladay of the U.S. Department of Energy for funding this work. George Sverdrup of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Vicki McCarl of Xcel Energy were both very helpful in scoping and defining the Wind2H2 project and have provided excellent feedback throughout the project. Brad Hollenbaugh and Curtis Perry of Xcel Energy were instrumental in helping design and configure the Wind2H2 system and in participating in the readiness verification review. The authors would like to acknowledge John Cornish of EPC and Marc Mann of Spectrum Automation for their work installing and programming the Wind2H2 system. The authors would like to thank Connie Komomua for her assistance in editing the work. Finally, the authors would like to thank Robert Remick, Dave Mooney, Ben Kroposki, Mike Stewart, and Genevieve Saur of NREL for their technical assistance throughout the project. and is enjoying success as a demonstration project, producing hydrogen directly from renewable energy sources. This unique research-oriented project uses solar and wind energy to produce and store hydrogen. The stored hydrogen can be used both as a transportation fuel and as an energy storage medium, effectively allowing renewable energy to be stored and converted back to electricity at a later time.The Wind2H2 project is helping researchers understand the hurdles and potential areas for improvement in emerging renewable electrolysis technologies. By allowing engineers to operate and configure an integrated electrolysis facility, this project has enabled the investigation and analysis of hydrogen production, compression, storage, and electricity generation that is providing valuable data that are being used to improve the designs of future renewable electrolysis systems. This first report on the Wind2H2 project provides important guidance to industry and key stakeholders for development of future renewable electrolysis systems.The Wind2H2 project is the only renewable hydrogen production facility in the world that can operate multiple electrolyzers in any of the following configurations: 1. Grid connected 2. Directly connected from the output of a photovoltaic array to the electrolyzer stack 3. Real-time electrolyzer stack current control based on a power signal from a wind turbine 4. Closely coupled photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy sources to the electrolyzer stack with custom designed and built power electronics.NREL and Xcel Energy have undertaken the Wind2H2 project with several key objectives in mind. First and foremost, the Wind2H2 project is being used to demonstrate operation of a renewable electrolysis system, allowing researchers to evaluate actual system performance and costs and to identify areas for cost and efficiency improvements. Additionally, the project provides operational experience with a renewable electrolysis hydrogen production facility, enabling project engineers to investigate operational challenges and to explore system-...

Prospects for alkaline zero gap water electrolysers for hydrogen production

“…during daylight, when the wind blows) while consumers expect to have access to electricity available at all times. On the other hand, it is necessary to recognise the scale of operations that is being discussed [13,21]. Table 1 compares the possible size of water electrolysis plants for various applications and compares it with some existing technology.…”

“…The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory regularly reviews the economics of hydrogen production by water electrolysis and considers issues such as the integration of an electrolysis plant with a wind farm, for example [13,21]. It has been shown clearly that for small systems, the dominant factor in determining the cost of H 2 is the cost of the electrolysis cells while, in contrast, for large systems the cost of electricity and the value of the hydrogen dominate the discussion.…”

Value assessment of hydrogen-based electrical energy storage in view of electricity spot market

“…Through a number of installations of domestic fuel cell (FC) micro-combined heat and power systems (micro-CHPs), the need for heat and electricity from each household is met individually, resulting in 100% carbon neutral. Other applications for utilizing this kind of hydrogen solution to facilitate renewable integration can also be found in [7,8]. The installed capacity of these real-life applications are typically below 100 kW.…”

Dynamic operation and feasibility study of a self-sustainable hydrogen fueling station using renewable energy sources

“…In order to verify the PEM electrolyzer model, experimental data from a 6.5 kW (135 A rated, stack voltage ¼ 48 V) PEM electrolyzer stack from NREL's Wind-to-Hydrogen Project were obtained [17]. The electrolyzer model verification can be found in our previous paper [8].…”

“…The study determined the exergy efficiency of the various components of the system, and calculated the exergy losses that occurred as a result of irreversibility. Harrison et al [17] reported the design, installation, and operation of the Wind-toHydrogen (Wind2H2) project, in which hydrogen is produced directly from renewable energy sources. This project used solar and wind energy to produce and store hydrogen.…”