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Thursday, October 30, 2008
Exhibit Hall
During last years the number of power plants based on renewable energy (RWE) is increasing; these systems, often photovoltaics (PV) or wind power (WP), are connected to the national electricity grid.
As known, RWE sources are affected by intermittency and it is generally believed that when the penetration reaches the 20-30% of the overall power generation the strong grids will also be affected by intermittency. This behaviour will be amplified in weak grids that would become instable starting from a low RWE penetration level. So in this context, energy storage should play a key role in the future energy systems based on renewable energy. From this point of view hydrogen, used as an energy carrier, is suitable one of the medium-long term storage solution. Hydrogen has also a great potential as CO2-free “fuel” for FCEVs, when produced by electrolysis starting from RWE sources. In order to evaluate the potential of this approach, many investigations and demonstration projects focused on the hydrogen production via electrolysis supplied by RWE have been achieved. Furthermore, the main barrier to set-up a large-scale sustainable hydrogen economy is the high cost of hydrogen production and infrastructures.
In a previous our work, starting from TRNSYS environment, a new simulation tool has been developed. It is able to determine the best technical and economic solution in order to design an hydrogen filling station, based on electrolysis process supplied by wind power. The rusults of analysis showed that hydrogen cost is closely connected to boundary conditions, such as specific wind source available, hydrogen demand and electrolyser management.
Using the same simulation code, the aim of present study is to carry out a techno-economic analysis of hydrogen technologies integration in a large scale of an approved RWE plant (5MW).
The project will be realized in the South of Italy (Puglia) and consist of different sectors of RWE (PV, Wind Power, Biomass). In particular the PV park will be composed of fixed and tracking installations, that allow to increase the efficiency of about 25-30% (total power will be 3MWp). Indeed, the wind turbine will be of 1MW and yearly productivity has been evaluated using anemometric analysis data. In this scenario a small area will be dedicated to a demonstrative plant of hydrogen production, in which required energy for the electrolysis process will be provided by PV and wind power systems. The amount of hydrogen has been calculated on the basis of a fleet fuel consumption. Particularly the fleet is composed by minibus fed by three different gases: Methane, hydrogen and hythane, that is a mixture of hydrogen and methane. Hythane is considered a fundamental element for development of hydrogen economy. So the project should demonstrate how it is really possible to pass from fossil fuels (such as methane) to hydrogen using hythane as link. This “strategy” would help public opinion to understand new technologies potentiality.
Regarding the minibus powertrain configurations, there will be used minibus with conventional ICE, for methane and hythane, and with fuel cell (FC) in range extender architecture. In this latter the FC is used as on board recharge batteries in order to increase the range autonomy and avoid the long recharging time (about 8 hours) needed for conventional electric vehicles. The consumption of hydrogen has been evaluated on the basis of experimental data obtained by several test carried out on different fuel cell power-module (from 1 to 5 kWe).
As known, RWE sources are affected by intermittency and it is generally believed that when the penetration reaches the 20-30% of the overall power generation the strong grids will also be affected by intermittency. This behaviour will be amplified in weak grids that would become instable starting from a low RWE penetration level. So in this context, energy storage should play a key role in the future energy systems based on renewable energy. From this point of view hydrogen, used as an energy carrier, is suitable one of the medium-long term storage solution. Hydrogen has also a great potential as CO2-free “fuel” for FCEVs, when produced by electrolysis starting from RWE sources. In order to evaluate the potential of this approach, many investigations and demonstration projects focused on the hydrogen production via electrolysis supplied by RWE have been achieved. Furthermore, the main barrier to set-up a large-scale sustainable hydrogen economy is the high cost of hydrogen production and infrastructures.
In a previous our work, starting from TRNSYS environment, a new simulation tool has been developed. It is able to determine the best technical and economic solution in order to design an hydrogen filling station, based on electrolysis process supplied by wind power. The rusults of analysis showed that hydrogen cost is closely connected to boundary conditions, such as specific wind source available, hydrogen demand and electrolyser management.
Using the same simulation code, the aim of present study is to carry out a techno-economic analysis of hydrogen technologies integration in a large scale of an approved RWE plant (5MW).
The project will be realized in the South of Italy (Puglia) and consist of different sectors of RWE (PV, Wind Power, Biomass). In particular the PV park will be composed of fixed and tracking installations, that allow to increase the efficiency of about 25-30% (total power will be 3MWp). Indeed, the wind turbine will be of 1MW and yearly productivity has been evaluated using anemometric analysis data. In this scenario a small area will be dedicated to a demonstrative plant of hydrogen production, in which required energy for the electrolysis process will be provided by PV and wind power systems. The amount of hydrogen has been calculated on the basis of a fleet fuel consumption. Particularly the fleet is composed by minibus fed by three different gases: Methane, hydrogen and hythane, that is a mixture of hydrogen and methane. Hythane is considered a fundamental element for development of hydrogen economy. So the project should demonstrate how it is really possible to pass from fossil fuels (such as methane) to hydrogen using hythane as link. This “strategy” would help public opinion to understand new technologies potentiality.
Regarding the minibus powertrain configurations, there will be used minibus with conventional ICE, for methane and hythane, and with fuel cell (FC) in range extender architecture. In this latter the FC is used as on board recharge batteries in order to increase the range autonomy and avoid the long recharging time (about 8 hours) needed for conventional electric vehicles. The consumption of hydrogen has been evaluated on the basis of experimental data obtained by several test carried out on different fuel cell power-module (from 1 to 5 kWe).