Green Hydrogen Assessment of Generation and Storag
Green Hydrogen Assessment of Generation and Storag
Green Hydrogen Assessment of Generation and Storag
1051/e3sconf/202337903003
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1 Introduction
Every country must have a stable and secure electrical system. This requires dispatchable
power generation to control the balance between electrical load and power generation.
Honduras depends entirely on thermal and reservoir hydroelectric generation to stabilize the
national electrical network. Currently (2022) the installed capacity of thermal plants is 30%
and 31.7% for hydroelectric plants [1]. If these plants decrease their percentage of
participation, the stability of the national electrical network would be threatened.
Renewable energies such as solar and wind cannot provide stability to the grid because
they do not have dispatchable generation. It is essential to mention that power generation
plants that use variable renewable resources are affected by power limitations as a
consequence of the variability of the resource they use or low national electrical demand.
These power limitations that prevent the generation of energy at the maximum capacity of
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the plant are unavoidable since they are made to maintain the security of the national
electrical network. The energy that was not generated due to power limitations is called
"energy shedding" which can be used for green hydrogen production.
The carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere due to the process of fossil fuels energy
generation has a negative impact on the environment, contributing to the greenhouse effect
[2]. Carbon dioxide emissions in Honduras have increased by 38.25% from 2018 to 2020. In
2020, the power generation sector was responsible of 54% of the carbon dioxide emissions
[3]. This research is intended to estimate the green hydrogen potential from solar and wind
energy shedding to provide stability to the national electrical network and decrease carbon
dioxide emissions in Honduras.
Various articles evaluate the production of green hydrogen in different regions of the
world. Gondal et. al assessed a green hydrogen potential using the full energy potential of
biomass, solar, wind, and geothermal energy, among other energies in Pakistan using a
conversion factor between electric power and hydrogen for its calculations [4]. Thapa et. al
calculated the green hydrogen potential in Nepal with hydropower surplus using energy
consumption per kilogram of hydrogen from an electrolyzer [5]. Posso et. al estimated the
production of green hydrogen in Paraguay with a contribution of 93.34% of the solar energy
coming from the west of the country, for the final uses of transportation and domestic use
[6].
Similar to the previously mentioned studies, this research also evaluates the potential of
hydrogen generation from renewable sources of a country, with the novelty that a Power-to-
Power hydrogen plant was sized for each one of the twenty solar and wind power plants in
Honduras that were studied in this research using a cost-benefit analysis as a decision
criterion.
2 Methodology
The methodology in this research can be divided into the six following steps.
Where mass is one kilogram of water and molar mass is the molar mass of water which
is 0.01802 kg·(mol)-1. Once the number of moles of water in one kilogram of water is
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determined, the number of moles of hydrogen can be estimated with the following
stoichiometric equation:
1 (2)
H2 O→H2 + O
2 2
Equation (2) shows that for every mol of water there is one mole of hydrogen. The mass
of hydrogen in one kilogram of water can be calculated by clearing mass from Equation (1).
The water consumption depends on the electrolyzer and the type of water. The equivalence
on the type of water used is shown in the following equation [10]:
1 L pure water →1.43 L tap water → 3.33 L seawater (3)
Different powers of electrolyzers multiples of the chosen electrolyzer power were analyzed.
It was essential to calculate the amount of harnessed energy shedding for each power of
electrolyzers to know how much green hydrogen each power can produce. For that, energy
shedding, limited time and power data from [11] were processed. The data is from January
01, 2020, to June 30, 2022. It was necessary to create a code in Visual Basic Application that
can sort the data on an hourly basis to create a cumulative energy generation curve.
Usually, in cumulative energy generation curves, the time is on the x-axis and the power
is on the y-axis. Nevertheless, in this research, the axes were inverted to facilitate the
calculation of the harnessed energy shedding by each power of electrolyzers as shown in
Figure 1.
The harnessed energy shedding for each power of the electrolyzer was calculated by
Riemann sum with rectangles of 0.1 MW of width to have a more detailed approximation.
Since the data of limited power and time it is not that detailed, a polynomial regression was
done in GNU Octave by choosing the degree of a polynomial whose curve most closely
approximates the behavior of the original curve. An example is shown in Figure 2.
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1,200 1,200
1,000 1,000
800 800
Limited time [h]
In the polynomial regression an equation that can describe the curve was found with the
following form:
y=a0 ·xn ±a1 ·xn-1 ±a2 ·xn-2 ±a2 ·xn-3 ±a2 ·xn-4 … an x+b (4)
The harnessed energy shedding will increase as shown in Figure 3.
50,000.00
Harnessed energy shedding [MWh]
40,000.00
30,000.00
20,000.00
10,000.00
-
- 25.00 50.00 75.00 100.00 125.00
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Once the harnessed energy shedding by each power of electrolyzers is calculated, the
hydrogen Power-to-Power plants can be sized. That means that all the different powers of
electrolyzers are going to be sized by the following methodology:
• The water storage capacity is the water consumption of the electrolyzer in one day.
• The energy consumption of the electrolyzer it is found in the technical data of the
chosen electrolyzer. This information is useful to estimate the amount of hydrogen
produced annually in each plant. With the hydrogen produced in one year, an
average of hydrogen production per day can be estimated to calculate the daily
hydrogen storage capacity.
• The working time of the electrolyzer can be calculated by clearing t from the
following equation:
t
(5)
mH2 s = ∫ mH2 ·dt
0
Where 𝑚𝐻2𝑠 is the daily hydrogen storage capacity, 𝑚𝐻2 is the electrolyzer
hydrogen flow and t is the working time of the electrolyzer.
• And finally, the fuel cell is sized. For sizing the fuel cell, it is imperative to
determine the working time. The fuel cell is going to work 12 hours, which is the
night period where energy is going to be injected into the national electrical network.
• The power of the fuel cell can be estimated with the following equation:
Edaily
Pfc = (6)
𝑡
Where Pfc is the power of the fuel cell, Edaily is the energy that can be produced in one
day from green hydrogen, and t is the working time of the fuel cell. Edaily can be
calculated with the average hydrogen production per day from the electrolyzer and the
hydrogen consumption from the fuel cell, found in the technical datasheet.
A cost-benefit analysis is the decision criterion for choosing the sizing of the hydrogen plant
of each solar and wind plant studied in this research. The cost-benefit analysis can be
estimated with the following equation:
B
Cost-benefit=
C (7)
Where B is the benefit from selling the energy at the same price that the contract of the
existing renewable plant stipulates, and C is the cost, which includes the cost of investment
of the hydrogen plant, operation and maintenance, water consumption, and electricity
consumption from secondary equipment (hydraulic pump, compressor, and demineralizer).
The highest cost-benefit is identified in an optimization curve of the electrolyzer power as
shown in Figure 4.
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2.00
1.80
1.60
1.40
Cost-benefit [-] 1.20
1.00
0.80
0.60
0.40
0.20
-
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Electrolyzer Power [MW]
The Energy Return on Investment (EROI) allows for analyzing the feasibility of green
hydrogen production because it makes a comparison between the energy used during the
process and the energy obtained at the end of the process. Figure 5 shows the energy used
during the process (E1, E2, E3, and E4 which represents the energy consumed by the
electrolyzer, hydraulic pump, demineralizer, and compressor, respectively) and the energy
obtained at the end of the process (E5 which represents the energy injected at the national
electrical network in the night period).
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Energy generated with green hydrogen storage during the day, can be injected into the
national electrical network in the night. Since the only by-product of the generation of green
hydrogen is water, introducing the energy vector at the energy matrix can displace thermal
energy generation during the night and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The annually carbon dioxide emissions mitigation potential can be calculated as:
Where E is the energy generated from green hydrogen per year and F_cd is the emission
factor of fuel oil for energy generation. Which, according to [3] in 2020 contributed 33% to
the energy generation as a primary energy source in thermal power plants. An emission factor
of 0.6092 kg CO2·kWh-1 from [12] cited in [13] for fuel oil energy generation will be used.
A Truper Expert one horsepower (1 hp) hydraulic pump was used for filling the water
tank. This power was chosen because the time of filling must be equal to or under 12 hours
(which is the night period).
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The electrolyzer requires direct current to begin the electrolysis process, and a rectifier to
convert alternate current (AC) to direct current (DC) is needed. To convert AC voltage from
the renewable plants to DC voltage for the electrolyzer, a six-pulse diode bridge rectifier is
used, which provides an average DC voltage according to the AC power supply voltage
specification. Since the three-phase rectifier cannot be controlled with the use of diodes, a
DC-DC buck converter must be use to control the current through the single power switch
[14]. Figure 6 shows its operating diagram.
Theoretically, the water consumption for the electrolyzer is 25.56 kg of tap water for one
kilogram of hydrogen produced. Since the water consumption also depends on the
electrolyzer, the technical data of John Cockerill DQ 500 electrolyzer of 2.5 MW shows that
it consumes 10.33 kg of demineralized water which equals 29.54 kg of tap water for one
kilogram of hydrogen produced.
MAHYTEC hydrogen tanks were selected to store the hydrogen at 500 bar. High-pressure
tanks can increase the energy density of the hydrogen. However, a compressor is essential
since the output pressure of the electrolyzer is 30 bar. PDC-4 hydrogen compressors of 55
kW [14] were used to increase hydrogen pressure, this power was opted because its hydrogen
flow matches the electrolyzer hydrogen flow. FCGen fuel cells of 5 kW from Ballard were
selected because of its flexibility in cell arrangements to equal the sized fuel cell power for
the hydrogen plants. Because the input pressure of the fuel cell is 5 bar, it was necessary to
add a depressurization valve at the fuel cell input to lower the outlet pressure of the hydrogen
tanks.
The input data for the plant sizing and cost-benefit analysis is shown in Table 2.
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With the input data, the sizing of sixteen hydrogen Power-to-Power plants was made, and
the sizing with the highest cost-benefit ratio was selected. In total, 912 data points of energy
shedding, limited power and time data were collected and processed into cumulative energy
generation curves. For the analysis, the days in which there was no energy shedding were not
considered. Only sixteen out of twenty plants were sized because during the elaboration of
the cumulative energy generation curves, it was possible to identify that the plants: Fray
Lazaro, Lajas, Los Pollitos, and Llanos del Sur did not have energy shedding, or more than
80% of the days of the sample they did not present energy shedding. Therefore, those plants
were not sized.
Table 3 shows the result of the sizing for each plant, indicating the capacity of the
components, the annual green hydrogen and electricity generation of each plant, and its cost-
benefit.
Table 3. Sizing, generation, and cost-benefit results.
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The cost-benefit of every hydrogen plant is less than one, which means that the cost is
greater than the benefit of the hydrogen Power-to-Power plants. A cost-benefit analysis for
2025 was made and the results are greater than the cost-benefit of 2022. Despite that, it is
still less than one. The cost-benefit is affected by the working time of the plants (since they
only work when there is energy shedding), the high cost of the plant, and the energy sales
price assumed in the analysis (it can be assumed that in other countries the tariff for
generating electricity at night and using hydrogen is higher).
Table 3 shows that Honduras can annually generate 1,105,268.90 kilograms of green
hydrogen and 13,004.60 MWh of electrical energy from solar and wind energy shedding.
Figure 7 shows the share of each hydrogen plants in Honduras per year.
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100%= 1,105,268.90 kg H2
Soposa
7.20%
Cerro de Hula
San Marcos 15.01%
5.99%
Prados Sur
5.42%
Cinco Estrellas
7.37%
Marcovia
7.50%
Cohessa
8.65%
Mecer
4.56%
Helios Chinchayote
4.66% 6.33%
Nacoame l Choluteca ll
5.47% 5.90%
Fotersa Nacoame ll
2.82%
7.31%
Choluteca l
Enerbasa 4.08%
1.72%
The efficiency of the plants is 28.66% which represents a low efficiency in all the
processes. Nevertheless, this value is consistent with [18]. The low efficiency of the plants is
due to the multiple energy conversion processes through which the energy is subjected to.
The Energy Return on Investment of the plants is 0.2797, which means that the energy
input is highest than the energy output. This value is the same for the sixteen green hydrogen
plants because the same model of electrolyzers and fuel cells were used in every sizing.
Because of green hydrogen generation, 13,004.60 MWh of electricity generated from fuel
oil can no longer be generated. In this scenario, the carbon dioxide mitigation is 7,922,402.32
kg yearly.
4 Conclusions
A green hydrogen assessment of generation and storage potential from solar and wind energy
shedding was made. The amount of green hydrogen, electrical energy generated and
mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions per year was also determined. The analysis revealed
the following results:
• Honduras can generate approximately 1,105,268.90 kilograms of hydrogen and
13,004 MWh of electrical energy in a year. Cerro de Hula is the biggest sharer with
15.01% of the green hydrogen and energy produced within a year followed by
COHESSA with 8.65%.
• The cost-benefit of the hydrogen Power-to-Power plants is less than one, the highest
is 0.2067 from Cinco Estrellas and the lowest is 0.1055 from Enerbasa which means
that it is not economically feasible.
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• The Energy Return on Investment is 0.2797, lower than one, which indicates that
more energy is used in the Power-to-Power process than the energy obtained at the
end of the process.
• In total, 7,922,402.32 kilograms of carbon dioxide per year can be avoided by
implementing hydrogen plants that use energy shedding.
The main impediment of this research is the variability of power and time limitations of the
renewable plants. Despite this impediment, it is believed that this research can serve as a
guide for an estimation of green hydrogen potential in the different renewable plants. In this
manner, hydrogen plants can be added in the future indicative plans for the expansion of
electric power generation in Honduras. This would help in the process of the energy
transition, decarbonization, frequency stability in the electrical power network, and
independence from fossil fuels in the country.
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Acknowledgments
This research was financially supported by the Young Researchers Program, funded by the
European Union through the EUROCLIMA program and implemented by the Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. The contents of this text do
not necessarily represent the position of the European Union. M.P thanks Alicia Reyes and
Óscar Sabillon from UNITEC for all the time and knowledge they have gave through this
work.
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