What to do when breezes are blowing but demand for energy from a wind-power plant is low? In Herten, Germany, the plan is to use a hydrogen energy storage system to essentially grab that wind power and hold it until it’s needed.
The process is pretty simple, actually: Power from a wind plant will be used to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen. That hydrogen will then be stored and later used by fuel cells to produce clean electricity when it’s needed.
Now according to the National Renewable Energy Lab, this method of creating hydrogen is expensive. And if they weren’t planning to use excess power from wind generation in Herten, the whole process would be far more expensive than, say, powering a fuel cell with natural gas, the way the popular Bloom Boxes often operate. But in a situation where wind power is available and would otherwise go to waste, well, why not go for it?
“Electrolyzing water into hydrogen using excess intermittent renewable energy is the optimal clean pathway to smart grid stabilization and energy storage capacity. It has real advantages over alternative energy storage solutions,” said Daryl Wilson, president and CEO of Hydrogenics, the company doing the project. “We are very pleased that such a globally recognized hydrogen cluster as the City of Herten has awarded us the opportunity to demonstrate this capability.”
According to Hydrogenics, Herten is a “major German hydrogen cluster for electro-mobility as well as renewable energy projects,” so there are a number of ways the 50-kilowatt fuel cell power system, to be installed next year, might be used. “From storage,” Hydrogenics said, “the energy will be redeployed through fuel cells as electricity to the grid, or be used to fuel zero carbon emission vehicles and other devices such as industrial equipment.”