The need for a complete energy storage solution is becoming more acute where fields of wind turbines are already generating gigawatts of electricity, often with a significant mismatch in grid power demand.
It’s a well-established problem for the industry, and there are a number of energy management and storage systems in the pipeline today, but few offer a complete solution allowing wind and solar energy to be plugged into the grid seamlessly.
Water electrolysis technology is the most flexible and tenable solution to store renewable energy on a large, long-term scale. Using excess renewable electricity the Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyzer splits water into its constituent parts, hydrogen and oxygen, that can be stored in common tanks. Hydrogen is a flexible energy medium and the technology to produce the gas is working today. Our challenge is to scale-up hydrogen generators to meet the demand of the growing renewable power industry.
Hydrogen gas has the largest energy content of any fuel, making it a very good ‘vehicle’ for holding and distributing energy. With the ability to hold 120MJ/kg, a relatively small amount of hydrogen is needed to store significant amounts of energy. The stable chemistry of hydrogen also means you can store energy longer than any other medium.
The hydrogen produced from electrolysis can be easily stored using existing technology, either as a gas under high pressure, a liquid at very low temperature, or adsorbed by or chemically bonded to hydride complexes. Smaller amounts of hydrogen can be stored in above ground tanks or bottles under pressures up to 900 bar. For larger amounts of hydrogen, underground piping systems or even salt caverns with several 100,000 m3 volumes can be used.
The versatility of stored hydrogen gas means it can be placed at the center of new renewable energy infrastructure development. The renewably produced, stored gas (energy), could be used in large-scale fuel cells to produce electricity on-site, or it can utilize existing infrastructure, such as natural gas pipelines or other pipelines.
renewableenergyworld