Study on renewable hydrogen production on European islands
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
2021-08-23
Department
Major/Subject
Sustainable Energy Systems
Mcode
Degree programme
Environomical Pathways for Sustainable Energy Systems
Language
en
Pages
71 + 11
Series
Abstract
Islands face a unique set of challenges and opportunities that motivate their need for energy transition. This thesis presents a detailed techno-economic analysis of hydrogen production and utilization on European islands, with a focus on production from wind and solar energy. The islands of Cyprus and Holyhead, U.K. are used as case studies to conduct the analysis. The local transportation sectors of the islands were considered as the hydrogen off-takers, with the aim of decarbonisation. For each case study, three hydrogen demand scenarios were analysed with daily demands ranging from 103-50,300 kg H2/day. The production systems consisted of the renewable energy power supply, electrolyser and hydrogen storage tank, with grid electricity available as a supplement if renewable power was insufficient for meet-ing the demand. The MATLAB Particle Swarm Optimisation method was used to determine the optimum sizes of all system components, meanwhile minimizing the Levelised Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH). The results indicated that LCOH varied from 3.46-7.99 Euros/kg, depending on the location of production, production scale and renewable energy source used. The lowest LCOH value was obtained in Holyhead, with wind power as the production source and heavy-duty transport, port operations and one local ferry as the hydrogen off-takers. Overall, it was concluded that the capital costs of the solar modules and wind power purchase costs have the greatest impact on LCOH for solar and wind power usage, respectively. From a technical perspective, using wind energy yields greater intermittency in power supply and higher grid electricity dependence than using solar energy, but is favourable for increasing electrolyser operating hours. Oversizing the renewable energy park compared to the electrolyser was deemed favourable for all scenarios.Description
Supervisor
Santasalo-Aarnio, AnnukkaThesis advisor
Haverinen, AleksiKeywords
renewable energy, solar power, wind power, hydrogen, electrolysis, levelised cost of hydrogen