A hydrogen fuel cell power plant is a type of fuel cell power plant (or station) which uses a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity for the power grid. They are larger in scale than backup generators such as the Bloom Energy Server and can be up to 60% efficient in converting hydrogen to electricity. There is little to no nitrous oxide produced in the fuel cell process, which is produced in the process of a combined cycle hydrogen power plant. If the hydrogen could be produced with electrolysis also known as green hydrogen, then this could be a solution to the energy storage problem of renewable energy. [1] [2]
The Shinincheon Bitdream Hydrogen Fuel Cell Power Plant in Incheon, South Korea can produce 78.96 MegaWatts of power. It opened in 2021 and is one of the first large scale fuel cell power plants for the grid, rather than just a backup generator. The plant will also purify the air by sucking in 2.4 tons of fine dust per year and filtering it out of the air. It will also produce hot water as a by-product that will be used to heat houses locally, also known as district heating. [3] [4]
Fuel cells produce a lot of hot water and a cogeneration or combined cycle could be used for further benefit or to produce more electricity with a steam turbine, increasing the efficiency to >80% using a Phosphoric acid fuel cell. [5] [6]
Further studies are needed to see if the water is potable. Places that are dry and have water shortages could use the water for agriculture or other greywater uses. [7] [8] Another use would be to use the hot water by-product for High-temperature electrolysis for more hydrogen fuel. [9]
High-temperature electrolysis at nuclear power plants could produce hydrogen at scale and more efficiently. The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy has demonstration projects to test 3 nuclear facilities in the United States at:
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel and an oxidizing agent into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requiring a continuous source of fuel and oxygen to sustain the chemical reaction, whereas in a battery the chemical energy usually comes from substances that are already present in the battery. Fuel cells can produce electricity continuously for as long as fuel and oxygen are supplied.
Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time to reduce imbalances between energy demand and energy production. A device that stores energy is generally called an accumulator or battery. Energy comes in multiple forms including radiation, chemical, gravitational potential, electrical potential, electricity, elevated temperature, latent heat and kinetic. Energy storage involves converting energy from forms that are difficult to store to more conveniently or economically storable forms.
A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid.
Distributed generation, also distributed energy, on-site generation (OSG), or district/decentralized energy, is electrical generation and storage performed by a variety of small, grid-connected or distribution system-connected devices referred to as distributed energy resources (DER).
The hydrogen economy is an umbrella term for the roles hydrogen can play alongside low-carbon electricity to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The aim is to reduce emissions where cheaper and more energy-efficient clean solutions are not available. In this context, hydrogen economy encompasses the production of hydrogen and the use of hydrogen in ways that contribute to phasing-out fossil fuels and limiting climate change.
High-temperature electrolysis is a technology for producing hydrogen from water at high temperatures or other products, such as iron or carbon nanomaterials, as higher energy lowers needed electricity to split molecules and opens up new, potentially better electrolytes like molten salts or hydroxides. Unlike electrolysis at room temperature, HTE operates at elevated temperature ranges depending on the thermal capacity of the material. Because of the detrimental effects of burning fossil fuels on humans and the environment, HTE has become a necessary alternative and efficient method by which hydrogen can be prepared on a large scale and used as fuel. The vision of HTE is to move towards decarbonization in all economic sectors. The material requirements for this process are: the heat source, the electrodes, the electrolyte, the electrolyzer membrane, and the source of electricity.
Grid energy storage is a collection of methods used for energy storage on a large scale within an electrical power grid. Electrical energy is stored during times when electricity is plentiful and inexpensive or when demand is low, and later returned to the grid when demand is high, and electricity prices tend to be higher.
Water splitting is the chemical reaction in which water is broken down into oxygen and hydrogen:
The methanol economy is a suggested future economy in which methanol and dimethyl ether replace fossil fuels as a means of energy storage, ground transportation fuel, and raw material for synthetic hydrocarbons and their products. It offers an alternative to the proposed hydrogen economy or ethanol economy, although these concepts are not exclusive. Methanol can be produced from a variety of sources including fossil fuels as well as agricultural products and municipal waste, wood and varied biomass. It can also be made from chemical recycling of carbon dioxide.
Hydrogen gas is produced by several industrial methods. Nearly all of the world's current supply of hydrogen is created from fossil fuels. Most hydrogen is gray hydrogen made through steam methane reforming. In this process, hydrogen is produced from a chemical reaction between steam and methane, the main component of natural gas. Producing one tonne of hydrogen through this process emits 6.6–9.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide. When carbon capture and storage is used to remove a large fraction of these emissions, the product is known as blue hydrogen.
Hybrid power are combinations between different technologies to produce power.
A load-following power plant, regarded as producing mid-merit or mid-priced electricity, is a power plant that adjusts its power output as demand for electricity fluctuates throughout the day. Load-following plants are typically in between base load and peaking power plants in efficiency, speed of start-up and shut-down, construction cost, cost of electricity and capacity factor.
A Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) is a specific proposed generation IV very-high-temperature reactor (VHTR) that could be coupled to a neighboring hydrogen production facility. It could also produce electricity and supply process heat. Up to 30% of this heat could be used to produce hydrogen via high-temperature electrolysis significantly reducing the cost of the process. The envisioned reactor design is helium-cooled, using graphite-moderated thermal neutrons, and TRISO fueled.
The 42' sailboat known as the XV/1 was intended to demonstrate Haveblue LLC's patented technology for the production, storage, and use of hydrogen on board a marine vessel. The anticipated range was to be a radius of ~300 nautical miles at 8 knots on a full tank.
Power-to-gas is a technology that uses electric power to produce a gaseous fuel. When using surplus power from wind generation, the concept is sometimes called windgas.
Hydrogenics is a developer and manufacturer of hydrogen generation and fuel cell products based on water electrolysis and proton-exchange membrane (PEM) technology. Hydrogenics is divided into two business units: OnSite Generation and Power Systems. Onsite Generation is headquartered in Oevel, Belgium and had 73 full-time employees as of December 2013. Power Systems is based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, with a satellite facility in Gladbeck, Germany. It had 62 full-time employees as of December 2013. Hydrogenics maintains operations in Belgium, Canada and Germany with satellite offices in the United States, Indonesia, Malaysia and Russia.
Power-to-X are electricity conversion, energy storage, and reconversion pathways from surplus renewable energy. Power-to-X conversion technologies allow for the decoupling of power from the electricity sector for use in other sectors, possibly using power that has been provided by additional investments in generation. The term is widely used in Germany and may have originated there.
Green hydrogen (GH2 or GH2) is hydrogen produced by the electrolysis of water, using renewable electricity. Production of green hydrogen causes significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than production of grey hydrogen, which is derived from fossil fuels without carbon capture.
Moorside clean energy hub is a proposal put forward on 30 June 2020 by two consortia, one led by EDF and the other by Rolls-Royce, to create an energy hub that would produce electricity and hydrogen through the use of nuclear power and renewable energy.
A combined cycle hydrogen power plant is a power plant that uses hydrogen in a combined cycle power plant. A green hydrogen combined cycle power plant is only about 40% efficient, after electrolysis and reburning for electricity, and is a viable option for energy storage for longer term compared to battery storage. Natural gas power plants could be converted to hydrogen power plants with minimal renovation or do a combined mix of natural gas and hydrogen.