Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers

If an affordable infrastructure for low-carbon-intensity hydrogen can be developed then hydrogen is expected to become a key factor in decarbonizing the atmosphere. This research focuses on factors an existing wind farm operator would consider when weighing participating in the electricity market the hydrogen market or both. The solutions depend on the state of technology which is changing rapidly the local market structures the local natural resources and the local pre-existing infrastructure. Consequently this investigation used an assessment approach that examined the variation of net present value. The investigation identified profitability conditions under three different scenarios: 1) Make and sell what makes economic sense at the time of production 2) Use electrolyzer and fuel cell to consume power from the grid at times of low net demand and to produce electricity at times of high net demand 3) Same as #2 but also market hydrogen directly when profitable.

This paper deals with the integration of a Power-to-Power Energy Storage System (P2P-ESS) based on a hydrogen driven micro gas turbine (mGT) for an off-grid application with a continuous demand of 30 kWe for three European cities: Palermo Frankfurt and Newcastle. In the first part of the analysis the results show that the latitude of the location is a very strong driver in determining the size of the system (hence footprint) and the amount of seasonal storage. The rated capacity of the PV plant and electrolyzer are 37%/41% and 58%/64% higher in Frankfurt and Newcastle respectively as compared to the original design for Palermo. And not only this but seasonal storage also increases largely from 3125 kg H2 to 5023 and 5920 kg H2 . As a consequence of this LCOE takes values of 0.86 e/kWh 1.26 e/kWh and 1.5 e/kWh for the three cities respectively whilst round-trip efficiency is approximately 15.7% for the three designs at the 3 cities. Finally with the aim to reduce the footprint and rating of the different systems a final assessment of the system hybridised with battery storage shows a 20% LCOE reduction and a 10% higher round-trip efficiency.

The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is one of the greatest global challenges through 2050. Besides greenhouse gas emissions air pollution such as nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions has gained increasing attention in agglomerated areas with transport vehicles being one of the main sources thereof. Alternative fuels that fulfill the greenhouse gas reduction goals also offer the possibility of solving the challenge of rising urban pollution. This work focuses on the electric drive option for heavy and light duty vehicle freight transport. In this study fuel cell-electric vehicles battery-electric vehicles and overhead catenary line trucks were investigated taking a closer look at their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution and also considering the investment and operating costs of the required infrastructure. This work was conducted using a bottom-up transport model for the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. Two scenarios for reducing these emissions were analyzed at a spatial level. In the first of these selected federal highways with the highest traffic volume were equipped with overhead catenary lines for the operation of diesel-hybrid overhead trucks on them. For the second spatial scenario the representative urban area of the city of Cologne was investigated in terms of air pollution shifting articulated trucks to diesel-hybrid overhead trucks and rigid trucks trailer trucks and light duty vehicles to battery-electric or fuel cell-electric drives. For the economic analysis the building up of a hydrogen infrastructure in the cases of articulated trucks and all heavy duty vehicles were also taken into account. The results showed that diesel-hybrid overhead trucks are only a cost-efficient solution for highways with high traffic volume whereas battery overhead trucks have a high uncertainty in terms of costs and technical feasibility. In general the broad range of costs for battery overhead trucks makes them competitive with fuel cell-electric trucks. Articulated trucks have the highest potential to be operated as overhead trucks. However the results indicated that air pollution is only partially reduced by switching conventional articulated trucks to electric drive models. The overall results show that a comprehensive approach such as fuel cell-electric drives for all trucks would most likely be more beneficial.

Methanol is a promising new alternative fuel that emits significantly less carbon dioxide than gasoline. Traditionally methanol was produced by gasifying natural gas and coal. Syn-Gas is created by converting coal and natural gas. After that the Syn-Gas is converted to methanol. Alternative renewable energy-to-methanol conversion processes have been extensively researched in recent years due to the traditional methanol production process’s high carbon footprint. Using an electrolysis cell wind energy can electrolyze water to produce hydrogen. Carbon dioxide is a gas that can be captured from the atmosphere and industrial processes. Carbon dioxide and hydrogen are combusted in a reactor to produce methanol and water; the products are then separated using a distillation column. Although this route is promising it has significant cost and efficiency issues due to the low efficiency of the electrolysis cells and high manufacturing costs. Additionally carbon dioxide capture is an expensive process. Despite these constraints it is still preferable to store excess wind energy in the form of methanol rather than sending it directly to the grid. This process is significantly more carbon-efficient and resource-efficient than conventional processes. Researchers have proposed and/or simulated a variety of wind power methods for methanol processes. This paper discusses these processes. The feasibility of wind energy for methanol production and its future potential is also discussed in this paper.

Growing attention to the environmental aspect has urged the effort to reduce CO2 emission as one of the greenhouse gases. The cement industry is one of the biggest CO2 emitters in this world. Alternative fuel is one of the challenging issues in cement production due to the limited fossil fuel resources and environmental concerns. Meanwhile hydrogen (H2) has been reported as a promising non-carbon fuel with ammonia (NH3) as the main candidate for chemical storage methods. In this work an integrated system of cement production with an alternative H2-based fuel is proposed consisting of the dehydrogenation process of NH3 and the H2 combustion to provide the required thermal energy for clinker production. Different catalysts are employed and evaluated to analyze the specific energy input (SEI). The result shows that the conversion rate strongly determines the SEI with minimum SEI (3829.8 MJ t-clinker-1 ) achieved by Ni-Pt-based catalyst at a reaction temperature of 600 ºC. Compared to the conventional fuel of coal the H2-based integrated cement production system shows a significant decrease of 44% in CO2 emission due to carbon-free combustion using H2 as the fuel. The current study on the proposed integrated system of H2-based cement production also provides an initial thermodynamic analysis and basic observation for the adoption of non-carbon-based H2 including the storage system of NH3 in the cement production process.

An integrated renewable system that utilizes solid waste-based biogas is important steps towards the sustainable energy solutions to rural off-grid communities in Bangladesh. In this study a hybrid energy system consisting of photovoltaic modules wind turbines biogas generators fuel cells and electrolyzer-hydrogen tank-based energy storage is optimized using non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). The hybrid system is optimized based on the cost of energy and human health damage as objective functions and a fuzzy decision-making technique is employed to determine the optimal solution to the multi-objective approach. Additionally several economic ecological and social indicators are also investigated while meeting a certain load reliability. An energy management strategy has been developed in the MATALB environment to satisfy the community load and the battery-driven electric vehicle load. Results from this comprehensive analysis suggest that the optimal configuration of PV/WT/FC/BG has an energy cost of 0.1634 $/kWh and an ecosystem damage of 0.00098 species.year. The human health damage and the human development index of the optimized system are 0.1732 DALYs and 0.696 DALYs respectively. Additionally the proposed system has a lifecycle emission of 123730 kg CO2-eq/year carbon emission penalties of $1856/year a job creation potential of 30 jobs/MW over the 25 years of project lifetime. The hybrid system oversees solid waste management solutions and provides the community with sustainable energy and vehicle recharge.

This paper examines some specific design issues associated with hydrogen transportation via pipelines based on recent field development study of high-throughput hydrogen pipelines. A mechanical design review is undertaken and the current design practices and challenge are examined first. An array of key parameters considered to have significant bearing on the hydrogen pipeline general mechanical design are considered and assessed including OOR imperfections combined stress and design factors thermal gradients joint mismatch and fabrication fatigue assessment installation specifications and material consideration. Some of these are typically ignored for the conventional pipeline design but open to rationalization for hydrogen charged pipeline systems subject to material embrittlement risk arising from hydrogen absorption. Complementary to the current design standards and as a spur to discussion on the hydrogen pipeline design analysis special considerations and recommendations are proposed on materials specification additional design criteria and construction assessments and their rationale to mitigate material embrittlement with a view to improving hydrogen pipeline design reliability and integrity management potentially leading to some tangible cost saving.

Understanding what people think about hydrogen energy and how this influences their acceptance of the associated technology is a critical area of research. The public’s willingness to adopt practical applications of hydrogen energy such as hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (HFCVs) is a key factor in their deployment. To analyse the direct and indirect effects of key attitudinal variables that could influence the intention to use HFCVs in Spain an online questionnaire was administered to a representative sample of the Spanish population (N = 1000). A path analysis Structural Equation Model (SEM) was applied to determine the effect of different attitudinal variables. A high intention to adopt HFCVs in Spain was found (3.8 out of 5) assuming their wider availability in the future. The path analysis results indicated that general acceptance of hydrogen technology and perception of its benefits had the greatest effect on the public’s intention to adopt HFCVs. Regarding indirect effects the role of trust in hydrogen technology was notable having significant mediating effects not only through general acceptance of hydrogen energy and local acceptance of hydrogen refuelling stations (HRS) but also through positive and negative emotions and benefits perception. The findings will assist in focusing the future hydrogen communication strategies of both the government and the private (business) sector.

In response to the issues of insufficient flexibility in the operation of hydrogen storage and hydrogen production equipment with poor economic viability when operated independently in the park firstly a comprehensive energy system model for hydrogen storage and power generation which considering the multi-operational conditions of alkaline electrolyzers (ELE) is constructed. This model is integrated into the comprehensive en ergy system of the park as a multi-energy supply device. Multiple park comprehensive energy systems are then interconnected to form a park comprehensive energy system cluster through the sharing of electric energy. Subsequently an operational optimization strategy is proposed to address the issues of electric energy sharing and profit settlement in the park cluster system. This strategy consists of two stages. In the first stage the alternating direction method of multipliers with dynamic step size (DSS-ADMM) is employed to solve the electric energy transaction volume among parks. In the second stage based on the operating costs of the park cluster system under different degrees of electric energy sharing the Shapley value method from cooperative game theory is used to settle park profits. Finally the results indicate that the operational mode of hydrogen storage which considering the multi-operational conditions of alkaline ELE effectively enhances the flexibility in pre paring hydrogen during electrolysis meeting various energy supply needs within the park. The sharing of electric energy among parks promotes the reduction of park operating costs resulting in a 6.05 % decrease in the total cost of the park cluster system. Meanwhile the Shapley value method effectively settles park profits with in dividual parks receiving profits of 1652.9583 ¥ 404.2334 ¥ and 734.7739 ¥ respectively

Hydrogen as a clean fuel offers a practical pathway to achieve net-zero targets. However due to its physical and chemical characteristics there are some safety concerns for large-scale hydrogen utilisation particularly in process safety management. Leakage of gaseous hydrogen especially in semi-confined spaces such as tunnels can lead to catastrophic outcomes including uncontrolled fire and explosion. The current paper describes the outcome of an experimental and numerical study that aims to understand the dispersion of leaked light gas in a semi-confined space to support the adoption of hydrogen. A dispersion chamber with dimensions of 4m × 0.3m × 0.3m was constructed to investigate a baseline gas leakage scenario. To reduce the risk of the experiment in the laboratory helium is utilised as a surrogate for hydrogen. Computational fluid dynamics simulations are con ducted using FLACS-CFD to model the dispersion of leaked gas in different scenarios focusing on the impact of the ventilation velocity leakage rate and slope. The results from comprehensive numerical simulations show that ventilation is a critical safety management measure that can significantly reduce the growth of flammable clouds and mitigate the fire and explosion risk. Even with the lowest ventilation velocity of 0.25 m/s an improvement in the gas concentration level of 29.34% can be achieved in the downstream chamber. The current results will help to further enhance the understanding of hydrogen safety aspects.