Hydrogen energy storage: Hydrogen and oxygen storage subsystems

Hydrogen seems to possess all the characteristics to store the excess of electrical energy produced during off-peak periods. Hydrogen energy storage plants could be environmentally non-polluting, easy to place, not sensible to load variation, unbounded in size, efficient and safe. These last two features seem to contradict one another. An option that could give a reliable solution is the storage of hydrogen in metal hydride and the storage of oxygen as a liquid. Such a choice is probably the safest one to make and allows the achievement of efficiencies comparable to those obtainable with gaseous storage of both electrolytic products. The power consumption for H-2 and O-2 storage is only 3% of the total energy stored and the charging ratio approaches the values obtained with hydro-pumped storage plants. (C) 1997 International Association for Hydrogen Energy.