Hydrogen production from the WindFloat Atlantic offshore wind farm: A techno-economic analysis

Abstract

Green hydrogen production is expected to have a major contribution in addressing the global challenge of energy transition and economy decarbonization. In such a transition, wind energy is considered as one of the principal electricity sources for H2 production, both because it is a sustainable source and owing to the intermittency of the wind resource. In recent years, new wind farms have gradually moved offshore, due to better wind resource quality and due to limited space onshore. However, a mismatch between instantaneous wind energy availability and electricity demand often leads to wasting some of the wind resource, usually referred to as curtailment events. Such an excess energy could be used to produce hydrogen and thus make efficient and integrated use of the available equipment and resources. The present work analyzes the feasibility of hydrogen production employing electricity generated from wind energy, taking the WindFloat Atlantic offshore wind farm and Portugal’s electricity market as a case-study.Two scenarios are considered. Scenario 1 assumes the WindFloat Atlantic wind farm’s present capacity of 25.2 MW and scenario 2 considers a long-term commercial phase of 150 MW integrated in a developed hydrogen economy with pipelines for H2 distribution. In both scenarios a readily available PEM electrolyzer system is employed and the benefits of complementary oxygen sales are estimated. The availability of the wind resource and occurrence of different wind conditions for the particular location is estimated from the wind energy atlas. Afterwards, correlations between the renewable energy production and wholesale electricity price in the Iberian market are established by processing the data corresponding to the year 2019 and taking seasonal variations into account.For each of scenarios, two cases are considered. Case A assumes hydrogen is produced only at night whereas Case B allows for production both during nights and afternoons. Results show Case B and oxygen sales contribute to a more economically feasible project. For Case B and assuming a H2 selling price of 8 €/kg, discount rate (10%) and corporate tax of 21%, results show scenario 2 is the only profitable solution, due to the long-term lower costs. Scenario 1 appears to be feasible only with government incentives. The ratio between the hydrogen plant power and wind farm capacity (PPR) has a significant impact on the H2 production, with results showing a minimum in H2 cost for a ratio of approximately 30%.