Hydrogen-based P2P system in Norway: model validation through analysis of the data from the DEMO

Renewable Energy Sources are the key technology to achieve a more sustainable world and a brighter future. Their increasing share in energy production each year proves their relevance in the Energy research context. Together with the production technologies however, many other challenges and fields arise, like distribution, storage and control techniques. The present study focuses on the employment and optimization of RES technologies in remote areas, often isolated from a large national electric network and thus defined off-grid. A well-engineered storage system is essential in these contexts, since due to the well-known intermittency of energy generation from RES, an interruption in energy production would mean an interruption of supply in the entire grid. The goal of this thesis work is the creation of a model able to simulate the performances of a plant for power production from Renewable Energy Sources coupled with an hybrid storage system composed of conventional Li-ion batteries and a P2P system. This system is constituted by an electrolyzer able to exploit the excess of power produced by RES in order to produce “green” hydrogen (P2P, Power-to-Gas) and by a fuel cell which can produce power from the stored hydrogen (G2P, Gas-to-Power) in order to satisfy the load when the production from Renewables is small or missing at all. With the purpose of a more realistic and coherent with the real operational conditions approach, the study focuses on a demonstrative plant currently under construction. The chosen plant is the DEMO4 of Froan/Rye (Norway), the fourth of a series of pilot plants in the wider framework of the European project REMOTE. The project involves European partners like universities, research institutes and forward-looking companies in the field of energy and concentrates on the coupling of power production from RES with hybrid storage system for the supply of energy in isolated and off-grid areas. The model is developed using the Simulink/MatLab software and is able to simulate the thermodynamic and electrochemical behavior of the various components present in the system, together with the control logics and the various interaction systems between different parts of the plant. The results are presented through the study of parameters representing the capability of the system to grant self-sustainment and independence from external sources of energy. These results are produced for a selected set of “typical days” particularly representative of the various conditions of operation. Finally, the obtained data are compared with simulation results from the operation of the different components of the system provided by one of the companies partner of the REMOTE project, with the aim of validating the obtained results. Possible developments of the present work consist in a calibration of the model and further validation of the results using the real operational data from the plant, once it will be indeed realized, in order to make it more accurate with respect to the real working conditions.