Coupling renewables via hydrogen into utilities: Temporal and spatial issues, and technology opportunities. Final report

In this project, the authors show the technical potential for hydrogen used as an energy storage medium to couple time-dependent renewable energy into time-dependent electric utility loads. This technical analysis provides estimates of regional and national opportunities for hydrogen production, storage and conversion, based on current and near-term leading renewable energy and hydrogen production and storage technologies. Appropriate renewable technologies have been matched to their most viable (high quality and quantity) regional resources (e.g., examining wind electricity production in high wind resource areas only). The renewables are assumed to produce electricity which is instantaneously used by the local utility to meet its loads; any excess electricity is used to produce hydrogen electrolytically and stored for use later in the day, week or year. The hydrogen production from renewables and hydrogen storage use are derived based on a range of assumptions of renewable power plant capacity and fraction of regional electric load to be met (e.g., the amount of hydrogen storage required to meet the Northwest region`s top 20% of electric load). Renewable production/utility load/hydrogen storage coupling models have been developed for wind, photovoltaics, and solar thermal. Hydro power (which normally has its own inherent storage capability) has been analyzed separately