HYDROGEN SIMULATIONS FOR INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS
Is green hydrogen the solution to the energy transition? This is a question that has occupied the media for a long time. Hydrogen can be used as an energy carrier, buffer for green electricity, storage medium and it can also be burned or blended with gas. Since 2015, the Paris climate conference, few hydrogen plants have been built, unlike, say, solar farms or batteries. This contrasts with the growing hydrogen ambition in the government for which many subsidies are given. So why hasn't the growth in green hydrogen started yet?
This issue has already been covered extensively in the media. Hydrogen has some disadvantages: it is a light atom with low energy density, it is volatile, dangerous, explosive, difficult to store, and the conversion efficiencies from electricity to hydrogen and back to energy are very low. These factors often discourage companies and lead to a wait-and-see attitude toward hydrogen. In addition, skyrocketing energy prices in recent years have further strained the profitability of green hydrogen, leaving only a handful of initiatives.
According to Emmett Green, hydrogen has a significant future and the industry cannot afford to remain wait-and-see. In fact, solutions are already available for many of the aforementioned problems. Modern electrolysis systems meet stringent safety requirements and can be equipped with additional safety mechanisms. Storage issues can be minimized by keeping storage periods short and matching production directly to demand.
Low profitability due to high energy prices can be improved by smartly steering the plant to the availability of cheap green power and trading in multiple electricity markets. With proper implementation, high energy prices can even be an advantage for hydrogen plants. By taking advantage of the imbalance in the green energy market, you can generate hydrogen cheaply when power prices are low, or, conversely, sell the generated power more expensively when prices are high. Thus, the electrolyser can take advantage of the imbalance in the power grid, helping to balance the grid.
WHAT ARE HYDROGEN SIMULATIONS AND HOW DO THEY WORK?
Emmett Green has developed an advanced Energy Management System that optimizes your installations. By creating a digital twin of your site, this software is suitable for both simulations and the actual control of your installations. This ensures that the simulations accurately reflect the real situation in which our EMS manages your installations.
Our EMS also optimizes your hydrogen network, including the electrolyser and fuel cell, depending on the specific conditions. What exactly does this optimization entail? An electrolyser does not function in isolation; its performance depends on various factors such as the generation of your solar or wind farm, electricity markets, hydrogen customers, or your own systems that use hydrogen. All of these elements must be considered in the simulation.
On the upstream side of the electrolyser is your own power generation, a battery or the grid connection. Here the goal is to keep electricity costs and thus the levelized cost of Hydrogen (LCoH) as low as possible. Even if you generate your own green energy, you are still dependent on the price of electricity. Our EMS helps you decide whether it is more advantageous to use your own green energy for hydrogen production or to sell this electricity directly to the grid.
On the downstream side of the electrolyser is the management of the hydrogen produced. This includes delivering hydrogen to customers via pipeline or tanker trucks, storage in a storage system, or use in your own combustion plant or fuel cell. The price of the hydrogen is crucial here and depends on your specific situation. Does the hydrogen have to compete with natural gas? Do you follow the current hydrogen price? Or is there a fixed price agreed with the customer? All this plays a major role in the optimization and eventual profitability of the project, and thus must be included in the simulation.
Between these two flows is the model of the electrolyser. This model optimizes hydrogen production based on the manufacturer's specifications and the efficiency and degradation model. Thus, green hydrogen is produced in a financially advantageous way. . The electrolyser comes in different types, alkaline or PEM, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, a PEM reacts faster but an alkaline is much cheaper. These techno-economic specifications are also included in the model.
As mentioned earlier, an electrolyser is never a stand-alone system. It is often located in a hub with, for example, a GDS connected to solar farms, a hydrogen network towards various customers, a heat network or flexible installations such as batteries. The EMS optimizes the entire system in the simulations. A possible configuration is shown below. With smart control, the EMS ensures that your site as a whole always benefits.
Are you interested in hydrogen simulations or a feasibility study? Or would you like to drive your own hydrogen system? If so, please contact us using the contact form.
Our team of experts will first sit down with you to define your question and the parameters of the project. Based on the characteristics of your specific project, a digital model of the chain will be created in the EMS. If you already have data on the process, energy generation or offtake, these will be included. Once the model is created, we can start simulating based on your chosen scenarios.
If you want to evaluate more scenarios based on the results, make adjustments to the model, or need more data, please let us know. We will ensure that the adjustments are made and that you receive the necessary data.
THE APPLICATIONS OF HYDROGEN SIMULATIONS
The previous section explained how the model works and possibilities within the simulations. But what can you really use the simulations for?
Simulations provide insight into the production quantities: how much hydrogen was produced and how much electricity was used for this? But also: what is the average electricity price and what is the total yield? On a minute-by-minute basis, the trade-offs are made over the course of a year. At the end of the simulation, this data is converted into heatmaps so that it is clearly visible per moment how much hydrogen is produced.
The most important purpose of simulations is the feasibility study. To determine whether hydrogen is suitable for your purpose, a feasibility study must be conducted. The feasibility is tested for both the technical, legal, and also the financial areas. Especially for the technical and financial parts, simulations are important: how much hydrogen will be used/produced, where will the electricity come from to produce it, and how much will it cost? A business case shows whether hydrogen is a profitable option.
In addition, simulations are useful for determining the proper size of an electrolyser. If you are sure you want to use hydrogen, but do not yet know how large the electrolyser needs to be to meet your demand or be cost-effective, simulations allow you to easily test and compare different sizes. This also includes a portion of additional costs, as they do not scale linearly with the size of the electrolyser. So size affects the average cost price and investment cost.
Thus, the simulations provide a clear picture of how your system will perform and what your system will deliver. The simulations perform the exact tradeoffs based on historical data that your realized system will also perform based on live data.
THE BENEFITS OF OUR HYDROGEN SIMULATIONS
The flexibility and modularity of Emmett Green's EMS simulation model allow us to accurately recreate and optimize your specific situation, regardless of industry or application, for hydrogen simulations. Because we simulate the entire chain, we can incorporate the exact boundary conditions, such as energy availability and process constraints, of your project or plant into the simulations. Should you not have certain data available, we can use reference values and scenarios from our extensive internal database. By including these boundary conditions, you get a complete picture of the impact of innovations on your systems and processes.
Our approach uses digital models of electrolyzers and fuel cells, combined with historical market data and forecasts from recognized agencies. This provides reliable and realistic results. The specifications of our digital models are coordinated with various manufacturers, so the simulations accurately reflect what you can expect for your realized hydrogen production site. In fact, the EMS simulation model can also be used to optimize the site during the operational phase, meaning that the predicted results are representative of the future, as opposed to general assumptions that are often based on default values.
The EMS simulation model makes it easy to customize the hydrogen production chain and scenarios. This allows you to quickly evaluate and compare different scenarios and configurations. Want to examine the impact of an additional customer? Or weigh multiple pricing scenarios against each other? Do you want to adjust the size of a component, such as a solar farm? With just a few adjustments to the model, we can simulate and analyze these and many more variants for you.
Our data-driven approach enables the EMS to deliver exactly the information you need. We customize the model to your specific case and, if desired, can use your process data. This results in an accurate and personalized model for each client, allowing the EMS to simulate the impact on the entire process. This includes, for example, the use of green energy, the production of hydrogen based on a pricing model you choose, and more. This allows you to make more informed decisions based on the specific data you need.
In short, Emmett Green's EMS provides customized simulations and scenarios for your hydrogen project. By basing simulations on historical market data and realistic models of fuel cells and electrolysers, you get representative and reliable results. These results are also independent of any suppliers or financiers. You get the honest story from us. The flexibility of the EMS makes it easy to evaluate different configurations and pricing scenarios, so you can better understand and compare the impact and innovations on your system with the information you are looking for.
WHAT CAN EMMETT GREEN DO FOR YOU?
Are you interested in hydrogen simulations or a feasibility study? Or would you like to drive your own hydrogen system? If so, please contact us using the contact form.
Our team of experts will first sit down with you to define your question and the parameters of the project. Based on the characteristics of your specific project, a digital model of the chain will be created in the EMS. If you already have data on the process, energy generation or offtake, these will be included. Once the model is created, we can start simulating based on your chosen scenarios.
If you want to evaluate more scenarios based on the results, make adjustments to the model, or need more data, please let us know. We will ensure that the adjustments are made and that you receive the necessary data.
Collaborate?
Are you interested in hydrogen simulations or a feasibility study? Or would you like to drive your own hydrogen system? Then contact us via the contact form or request the hydrogen quick scan!
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