EURO 2024 Copenhagen
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2925. Quantifying the potential of curtailed electricity to produce green hydrogen

Invited abstract in session MA-14: Impacts of transitioning to green gases, stream Energy Markets.

Monday, 8:30-10:00
Room: 16 (building: 116)

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Alissa Ganter
Energy & Process Systems Engineering, ETH Zürich
2. Paolo Gabrielli
Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zurich
3. Tyler H Ruggles
Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science
4. Giovanni Sansavini
ETH
5. Ken Caldeira
Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science

Abstract

Hydrogen produced with low-carbon emissions plays a central role in European decarbonization strategies. Scaling up renewable hydrogen production is envisioned to speed up the energy system transition and reduce dependency on fossil fuel imports. To facilitate this scale-up, the European Union introduced guidelines outlining the conditions under which hydrogen is considered a renewable fuel. These guidelines specify that electrolyzers should only be powered by grid electricity during hours with excess renewables, or by electricity from dedicated renewable assets. With increasing shares of renewables in Europe, in recent years, about 85-100 TWh of renewable electricity has been curtailed annually. In this study, we use a linear optimization model to determine the optimal capacity and operation of electrolyzers for varying hydrogen prices and investigate the untapped potential of utilizing this excess renewable electricity for hydrogen production. While the option to deploy battery storage is included to store otherwise curtailed power for later use, it is not deployed in any scenarios considered due to high up-front investment costs. We show that by utilizing otherwise curtailed renewable electricity, about 30% of today’s European hydrogen demands from chemical industry and refineries could be met. The highest potentials are found in Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands, where electrolytic hydrogen could displace over 60% of existing fossil hydrogen production.

Keywords

Status: accepted

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