Green Hydrogen Kickstarts Massive Renewable Energy Projecthttps://cleantechnica.com/2023/06/15/green-hydrogen-kickstarts-green-powerhouse-plan-for-eastern-germany/The resulting 50 MW/500 MWh module is expected to become a standardized building block in LEAG’s plan to deploy 2-3 GWh of storage in the transformation of the LEAGs power plant locations,” the partners explained in an embargoed press release.
Grid Balancing & Green Hydrogen
That thing about grid balancing is important. Power plants need to correct mismatches between supply and demand on the fly. Under a fossil fuel scenario, that means building a baseload power plant that is always available to provide a certain amount of electricity over a 24-hour period.
When baseload power plants can’t handle the demand peaks, additional gas “peaker” plants may be needed. Peaker plants are designed to ramp up and down according to demand.
In a grid scenario with high inputs of wind or solar energy (or both), peaker plants would also be needed to cover night-time hours and other periods when intermittent energy resources are not available. However, the falling cost of energy storage is beginning to render the peaker plant model obsolete, even with high renewable energy inputs.
Industrial operations can also play a role in grid balancing, if they can be scheduled to use less electricity during high demand periods. That includes the electrolysis systems that push hydrogen gas from water. An integrated green hydrogen network would serve as a grid balancing, energy storage and transportation function in concert with the ESS flow batteries.