The Ability of Hydrogen Energy Storage to Replace Natural Gas Peaker Plants in the 2030 Time Frame
Creators: name: Fitch, Eric
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2019

description: World leaders have been discussing how to mitigate climate change for decades now, yet little progress has been made. Despite serious efforts by some countries, global greenhouse gas emissions increased 2.7% in 2018, reaching a record high 37.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide (Dennis & Mooney, 2018). To avoid irreparable damage to the environment, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced dramatically over the next decade. The biggest area of focus for many governments and utilities is decarbonizing the electricity sector. The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for wind and solar is now below that of conventional sources in all major economies except for Japan (Ross, 2018). However, renewable energy is intermittent, and cannot be controlled like conventional generation assets. Because of this, the rise of renewable energy is also a major driver for the growth of the energy storage market. There are many applications of energy storage technology, but this thesis will focus specifically on the potential to replace gas “peaker” plants with hydrogen energy storage in the 2030 time frame. This will not only result in decreased greenhouse gas emissions, but may help utilities decrease operating costs. Hydrogen is the best storage technology for this application because:1.Hydrogen technology can meet the long discharge times and rapid start up usually required of peaker plants.2.Hydrogen has the ability to store energy for weeks, or even months at a time. (World Energy Council 2016). 3.While other long-term storage technologies have very specific geographic restrictions, the production and storage of hydrogen can be distributed and is easily scalable. The primary goal of this research paper is to predict the role that hydrogen storage will play in replacing gas peaker plants by the year 2030. The paper will start by analyzing each energy storage technology in detail, and will explain why hydrogen is the best long-term storage technology to provide peaking capacity. It will then look at the role of gas peaker plants, and how this role will change due to the rise of renewable energy between now and 2030. Finally, the paper will move to an analysis of hydrogen production, distribution, and storage technology, as well as an analysis of fuel cell technology. It will discuss the unique properties of hydrogen, and what specific hydrogen production and storage technologies are expected to be dominant in 2030. Ultimately, this paper predicts that there will be approximately 5 GW of hydrogen energy storage in 2030 that will be used for peaking capacity in the United States. A typical system will use a Proton Exchange Membrane electrolyzer for hydrogen production, simple compression to store the hydrogen, and a Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell to convert the hydrogen back into electricity. These systems will make use of excess renewable energy from the grid, minimizing their environmental impact. Government’s interest in hydrogen as a storage medium has recently been augmented.  On March 4, 2019, the Department of Energy announced up to $31 million in funding to advance the H2@Scale concept.  The focus is to “enable affordable and reliable large-scale hydrogen generation, transport, storage, and utilization in the U.S. across multiple sectors” (EERE News, 2019). The DOE recognizes the incredible potential for hydrogen storage, and is working closely with the private sector to bring innovative technologies to market.