Value of green hydrogen when curtailed to provide grid balancing services

Abstract

International audienceThis paper evaluates the potential of grid services in France,Italy, Norway and Spain to provide an alternative income for<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/electrolyser"title="Learn more about electrolysers from ScienceDirect's AI-generated Topic Pages"class="topic-link"&gtelectrolysers</a&gt <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/producing-hydrogen"title="Learn more about producing hydrogen from ScienceDirect's AI-generated Topic Pages"class="topic-link"&gtproducing hydrogen</a&gt from wind power. Gridservices are simulated with each country's data for 2017 for energyprices, grid services and wind power profiles from relevant windparks. A novel metric is presented, the value of curtailedhydrogen, which is independent from several highly uncertainparameters such as electrolyser cost or hydrogen market price.Results indicate that grid services can monetise the unused sparecapacity of electrolyser plants, improving their economy in thecritical deployment phase. For most countries, up-regulation yieldsa value of curtailed hydrogen above 6 €/kg, over 3 times higherthan the EU's 2030 price target (without incentives). However,countries with large <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydro-power"title="Learn more about hydro power from ScienceDirect's AI-generated Topic Pages"class="topic-link"&gthydro power</a&gt resources such as Norway yieldfar lower results, below 2 €/kg. The value of curtailed hydrogenalso decreases with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydrogen-production"title="Learn more about hydrogen production from ScienceDirect's AI-generated Topic Pages"class="topic-link"&gthydrogen production</a&gt, corresponding to thecases of symmetric and down-regulation