Analysis of hydrogen production from wind energy in the southeast of Iran

Abstract

In recent years more attention has been paid to renewable and clean sources of energy like wind. Due to the uncertainties related to wind turbines, issues of energy storage are significant. One of the most appropriate methods of energy storage is the production of hydrogen. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the capability of wind energy for producing hydrogen in the south eastern province of Sistan & Baluchestan in Iran. This paper analyzes four different wind turbines with a capacity of 300–900 kW in five locations, in Dalgan, Lutak, Mil-Nader, Nosratabad and Zahedan. In this study, two approaches were used; the actual average wind turbine power and the Weibull. It was found that EWT Directwind 500/54 provides the best capacity factor among all examined turbines with the highest value of 50.77% for the station at Lutak. Additionally, the highest energy production was from the AWE 52-900 wind turbine with an annual production of 2462.5 MWh. A wind-hydro system consisting of a power controller, a high efficiency rectifier, and an alkaline electrolyzer was considered. The proposed conversion system resulted in a linear relationship between generated wind turbine energy and the amount of hydrogen produced. Therefore, the highest amount of yearly hydrogen production (39.82 ton-H2) is related to the largest examined wind turbine, installed in the station at Lutak.