Environmental impact of hydrogen production from Southwest China's hydro power water abandonment control

Abstract

Water abandonment in hydroelectricity production is a major challenge that can be solved with an increase in electricity demand. China as a country with huge hydropower installation is faced with the problem of underutilizing the hydropower potential due to inadequate electricity demand and transmission facility. In this study, we investigate the potential of hybridizing hydrogen production with hydropower stations in Southwestern China. We found that the integration of hydrogen production with hydropower stations will help reduce the country's CO2 emissions and as much as 1.18% reduction in China emission can be achieved adopting this methodology. In a hydropower station of 750 MW capacity, about 3.142 × 108 kg of hydrogen could have been produced from the abandoned water in 2019. This will also result in 351, 734, 330.9 kgCO2/yr emission reduction. We also developed a model to determine the optimized hydrogen installed capacity based on different parameters. Based on 2019 data, the CO2 emission of China will be reduced by 0.127% with the production of hydrogen from the excess electricity of a 750 MW hydropower station (Case study A) in Sichuan Province.