Posters

Abstract

With both wind power and hydrogen expected to be important technologies for a net zero energy system, there may be a case for creating integrated turbine - electrolyser systems. This raises new engineering challenges. One example is that the electrolyser may not be able to use all of the power produced by the turbine; the electrolyser might have a smaller capacity than the turbine for economic reasons, and it's minimum power intake might be greater than minimum turbine power output, for safety reasons. Here we quantify how much of the turbine's power cannot be used by the electrolyser (which we have named energy spill), compare this to the system's anticipated standby power losses, and draw out implications for energy storage requirements. For electrolysers that have a minimum load factor of 20% and capacities between 100% and 80% of the turbine capacity, the energy spilled can be between 3.6% and 14.9% of the total energy produced. For devices which have standby power draw between 1% and 0.1% of their rated capacity, between 20.5% and 0.4% of the energy spill is required to meet the standby power draw of the system i.e., the energy spill is sufficient to cover standby power draw. As there is an abundance of energy spill, the energy storage requirement for meeting the standby power losses of off grid turbine - electrolyser devices is driven by periods of low wind speeds, when there is no generation. These findings will help to optimise the design and control of integrated wind turbine - electrolyser systems from the perspectives of energy management and energy storage sizing.