Producing (and generating electricity with) Green hydrogen is 'lossy' with spare heat being produced, it would be good to recover some of it. We have huge heat demands and will have for decades, so should produce more heat with big heat pumps and utilise district heating with seasonal heat storage more. e.g. Underground or in football pitch sized insulated storage pits. In fact a football pitch could be laid over the floating insulation. Or cover the waterproof underliner with sand and big bags of river pebbles and put housing or parks or car parks over rigid insulation. The bags can be lifted if the flexible liner springs a leak.
To summarise this article: one way to get a renewable based energy grid to work is to build huge amounts of renewable energy generation at very low EROI, then build green hydrogen generation plants that would be used some of the time, then build green hydrogen storage, and finally green hydrogen electricity generators (which again would be used some of the time).
An awful lot of energy and CO2 would be required to do this. Wouldn't it be easier to just build high EROI nuclear power plants?
Would be really good to see more analysis on the lifetime CO2 impact of renewables and not just the theoretical zero at point of generation.
1. The wind (maybe large solar) plant would have a good EROI because they would be generating for the electricity market when prices were positive and then for the hydrogen market when they were negative. 2. We've already got a good start in having some storage facilities for natural gas which can be converted to hydrogen storage
It's a concept that you should familiarise yourself with. Although far from perfect, as a measure it is much more fundamental than the vagaries of market pricing.
Ok, it’s an obscure measure will little relevance to practical issues and which, as a result, I don’t want to spend time working out my own version of this analysis.
I haven't written any propaganda, just asked questions about your analysis. The only way to get to the best solution is to get as full an understanding as possible by making sure you question all angles. Your analysis would be much better if you were willing to do this.
Variation between demand and supply means not only despatchable generation to cover deficits, but despatchable loads to absorb surpluses. Instead of paying renewable generators to curtail generation, they should be paid for generating it and the surplus used for hydrolysis, the hydrogen stored long term instead of gas for generating electricity to balance the grid. There’s absolutely no need to dedicate wind capacity for this purpose because the surplus energy required is there as a matter of course and hydrolysis
could be used as a despatchable load. Right now we are simply letting it go to waste.
I really don’t see that happening. There are still technological uncertainties on hydrogen (especially storage in salt caverns, possible but low experience) and above all, battery storage can do the job. Even short term storage like Li-ion can take on for some of the seasonal storage need and other technologies like iron air batteries can develop too, and would just kill the hydrogen business case. Also bio methane can theoretically provide way more than 20TWh and is more economical than hydrogen.
maybe there are alternatives to green H2 for storing long term needs (as opposed to one or two days) for balancing power needs, but Li ion batteries aren't one of them. They need to be used regularly to be economic. For something that is not going to be used regularly you need a cheap substance that you can store
Good to see an acceptance that we have to have dispatchable power on standby even with high levels of renewable penetration. As to whether it can be hydrogen is very uncertain from a technical perspective let alone the vast cost and resources it would take to build out the necessary infrastructure. Personally I see it as wasteful currently to go down that route currently as the running hours of gas will continue to reduce as renewables and BESS build out continues to erode the need. The other thing to consider is the emissions from CCGTs will be a miniscule amount of the global production and whatever we do will make no difference. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything but I would advocate sweating the existing CCGT assets whilst the global science community works on the hydrogen solution that cost and resource competitive. Oh and the other thing we need to do is improve energy efficiency. Labour had an opportunity to implement the highest standards for all new builds but has chosen to kick the can down the road.
Instead of building infrastructure to cope with intermittent generation from renewable energy, concentrate on the demand side by encouraging industry and commerce to find novel ways of benefiting from cheap or free electrical energy, in the summer months for example. If new industry can be located near to the generators than would also reduce the need for grid upgrade expenditure.
Producing (and generating electricity with) Green hydrogen is 'lossy' with spare heat being produced, it would be good to recover some of it. We have huge heat demands and will have for decades, so should produce more heat with big heat pumps and utilise district heating with seasonal heat storage more. e.g. Underground or in football pitch sized insulated storage pits. In fact a football pitch could be laid over the floating insulation. Or cover the waterproof underliner with sand and big bags of river pebbles and put housing or parks or car parks over rigid insulation. The bags can be lifted if the flexible liner springs a leak.
To summarise this article: one way to get a renewable based energy grid to work is to build huge amounts of renewable energy generation at very low EROI, then build green hydrogen generation plants that would be used some of the time, then build green hydrogen storage, and finally green hydrogen electricity generators (which again would be used some of the time).
An awful lot of energy and CO2 would be required to do this. Wouldn't it be easier to just build high EROI nuclear power plants?
Would be really good to see more analysis on the lifetime CO2 impact of renewables and not just the theoretical zero at point of generation.
1. The wind (maybe large solar) plant would have a good EROI because they would be generating for the electricity market when prices were positive and then for the hydrogen market when they were negative. 2. We've already got a good start in having some storage facilities for natural gas which can be converted to hydrogen storage
EROI has nothing to do with market prices. It is energy return on energy invested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment
It's a concept that you should familiarise yourself with. Although far from perfect, as a measure it is much more fundamental than the vagaries of market pricing.
Ok, it’s an obscure measure will little relevance to practical issues and which, as a result, I don’t want to spend time working out my own version of this analysis.
It's less obscure than the market prices you keep quoting. You don't seem to do analysis, just propaganda
Not your propaganda, that’s for sure
I haven't written any propaganda, just asked questions about your analysis. The only way to get to the best solution is to get as full an understanding as possible by making sure you question all angles. Your analysis would be much better if you were willing to do this.
Variation between demand and supply means not only despatchable generation to cover deficits, but despatchable loads to absorb surpluses. Instead of paying renewable generators to curtail generation, they should be paid for generating it and the surplus used for hydrolysis, the hydrogen stored long term instead of gas for generating electricity to balance the grid. There’s absolutely no need to dedicate wind capacity for this purpose because the surplus energy required is there as a matter of course and hydrolysis
could be used as a despatchable load. Right now we are simply letting it go to waste.
possibly, yes - there are various possibilities for dealing with grid congestion
I really don’t see that happening. There are still technological uncertainties on hydrogen (especially storage in salt caverns, possible but low experience) and above all, battery storage can do the job. Even short term storage like Li-ion can take on for some of the seasonal storage need and other technologies like iron air batteries can develop too, and would just kill the hydrogen business case. Also bio methane can theoretically provide way more than 20TWh and is more economical than hydrogen.
maybe there are alternatives to green H2 for storing long term needs (as opposed to one or two days) for balancing power needs, but Li ion batteries aren't one of them. They need to be used regularly to be economic. For something that is not going to be used regularly you need a cheap substance that you can store
Good to see an acceptance that we have to have dispatchable power on standby even with high levels of renewable penetration. As to whether it can be hydrogen is very uncertain from a technical perspective let alone the vast cost and resources it would take to build out the necessary infrastructure. Personally I see it as wasteful currently to go down that route currently as the running hours of gas will continue to reduce as renewables and BESS build out continues to erode the need. The other thing to consider is the emissions from CCGTs will be a miniscule amount of the global production and whatever we do will make no difference. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything but I would advocate sweating the existing CCGT assets whilst the global science community works on the hydrogen solution that cost and resource competitive. Oh and the other thing we need to do is improve energy efficiency. Labour had an opportunity to implement the highest standards for all new builds but has chosen to kick the can down the road.
Green H2 is promising. It’s early to understand their real possibilities.
Instead of building infrastructure to cope with intermittent generation from renewable energy, concentrate on the demand side by encouraging industry and commerce to find novel ways of benefiting from cheap or free electrical energy, in the summer months for example. If new industry can be located near to the generators than would also reduce the need for grid upgrade expenditure.
Excellent article totally agree with your conclusions
Link to the report doesn't seem to work.
the link should work now