Modelling of the Utsira Wind/Hydrogen Demonstration System in Norway

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Modelling of the Utsira Wind/Hydrogen
Demonstration System in Norway

• Arnaud Eté

EWEC 2009 - Marseille
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Plan for this Presentation

• Presentation of SgurrEnergy
• What is a wind/hydrogen energy system
• The modelling tool
• Presentation of the Utsira Project in Norway
• Results of the simulations
• Conclusions

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Introducing SgurrEnergy

• Leading independent engineering consultancy
• International
• Based in Glasgow (Head Office), Vancouver,
  Beijing, Pune (India), Wexford Paris
• Experienced
• Over 90 responsive engineers and consultants
• Professional
• ISO 9001 14001 certified
• OHSAS 18001 certified
• Award Winning
• SCDI Award for Outstanding Achievement in RE
  2008
• Glasgow Business Award for International
  Activity 2007
• Best Business Achievement 2007 at Green Energy
  Awards

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Wind/H2 System A Balancing Mechanism

• Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy
  source!
• An electrolyser, a H2 storage and a fuel cell are
  used to store the excess electricity generated by
  wind turbines and produce electricity from
  hydrogen when needed

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Wind/Hydrogen Systems
Location Project Year
ENEA Research Centre, Italy Prototype wind/electrolyzer testing system 2000
University of Quebec, Trois-Rivières, Canada Renewable energy systems based on hydrogen for remote applications 2001
Utsira Island, Norway Demonstration of autonomous wind/hydrogen systems for remote areas 2004
West Beacon Farm, Loughorough, UK HARI Hydrogen And Renewables Integration 2004
Unst, Shetland Islands, UK PURE Promoting Unst Renewable Energy 2005
IFE, Kjeller, Norway Development of a field-ready small-scale wind-hydrogen energy system 2006
NREL, Golden, Colorado, USA Wind-to-hydrogen (Wind2H2) demonstration project 2006
Pico Truncado, Argentina Wind/hydrogen demonstration plant 2007
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Why We Should Use Modelling

• The hydrogen economy is often proposed as the
  means to solve both global warming and depletion
  of fossil fuel resources
• But technology still immature and performance
  needs to be improved to compete with conventional
  systems
• Computer modelling can help to optimise the
  system design and improve performance
• Modelling tool used TRNSYS/ TRNSED

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The Utsira Project in Norway
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The Utsira Project

• Collaboration with the Institute for Energy
  Technology (IFE) and StatoilHydro in Norway
• Utsira is the first large-scale demonstration of
  a stand-alone renewable energy system where the
  energy balance is provided by stored hydrogen
• In operation since winter 2004/2005
• Significant amount of operational data over the
  past 3 years

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Objectives

• Utsira Project
• Demonstrate how wind and hydrogen systems can
  provide safe and efficient power supply to
  communities in remote areas
• This study
• Use operational data from the Utsira plant to
  calibrate a set of energy models suitable for
  simulations in TRNSYS
• Evaluate the techno-economic performance of the
  plant
• Identify improved system designs and find an
  optimal configuration

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The Energy System at Utsira
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Modelling of the System

• Use of one month of operational data (March 07)
• Calibration of the system components
• Load profile and wind speed data
• Power curve of the wind turbine Enercon E40
• Hydrogen engine
• Electrolyser

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Electrolyzer H2 Engine Modelling
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Improvement of the System Design

• The existing system cannot guarantee a 100
  stand-alone operation for long periods of time

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Optimisation of the Utsira System (1/4)

• Optimisation based on cost calculations lower
  total net present cost for the project

Component Lifetime (years) Capital costs OM costs ( of capital costs)
Wind turbine 20 800 /kW 1.5
Electrolyser 20 2000 /kW 2.0
Compressor 12 5000 /kW 1.5
H2 storage 20 4500 /m³ 2.5
H2 engine 10 1000 /kW 2.0
Fuel cell 10 2500 /kW 2.0
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Optimisation of the Utsira System (2/4)

• Analysis using one year of operational data
  (Jan-Dec 05)

• Optimal system at Utsira
• 100 kW electrolyser
• 50 kW hydrogen engine
• 11,100 Nm³ of H2 storage (70 m³ at 200b )
• For a 100 stand-alone operation, the size of the
  electrolyser should be doubled and the H2 tank
  should be almost 5 times bigger!

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Optimisation of the Utsira System (3/4)

• To obtain better performance and reduce the size
  of the system, the existing H2 engine is replaced
  by a more efficient fuel cell

• Optimal system at Utsira
• 48 kW electrolyser
• 50 kW fuel cell
• 4800 Nm³ of H2 storage (30 m³ at 200b )
• The efficiency of the power generating system and
  the size of the H2 tank should be doubled
  compared to the existing system

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Optimisation of the Utsira System (4/4)
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Conclusions (1)

• Techno-economic model of wind/hydrogen energy
  system built on the TRNSYS platform and
  user-friendly interface designed
• Models applied to the wind/hydrogen demonstration
  project on the Island of Utsira in Norway
• This study has shown that the system needs to be
  modified in order to achieve fully autonomous
  operation for long periods of time
• Increase the size of the hydrogen storage
• Replace the hydrogen engine by a more efficient
  fuel cell

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Conclusions (2)

• Further technical improvements and cost
  reductions are necessary before wind/H2 systems
  can compete with existing commercial solutions,
  for example wind/diesel hybrid systems
• Hybrid system solutions should be based on more
  than one energy source (e.g. wind, solar,
  bioenergy) to reduce the need for large and
  costly energy storage
• When only based on wind it is particularly
  important to choose a location with a steady wind
  resource

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Thank youarnaud.ete_at_sgurrenergy.com
SgurrEnergy 225 Bath Street G2 4GZ Glasgow,
UK Tel [phone]