Opportunities for hydrogen production in connection with wind power in weak grids

This paper gives an overview of the opportunities that exist for combining wind power and hydrogen (H2) production in weak grids. It is described how H-2 storage can be applied in both isolated and grid-connected systems, and how the produced H-2 can be utilized for stationary energy supply and/or as a fuel for transportation. The paper discusses the benefits and limitations of the different H-2 storage applications, and presents a logistic simulation model for performance evaluation of wind-H-2 plants. A case study simulating the use of excess wind power in a weak distribution grid to produce H-2 for vehicles has been presented. It is shown that the penetration of wind power can be significantly increased by introducing electrolytic H-2 production as a controllable load. The results also indicate that there are large benefits of using the grid as backup for H-2 production in periods with low wind speed, regarding the H-2 storage sizing and the electrolyser operating conditions. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.