Abstract
With more renewables on the Swedish electricity market, while decommissioning nuclear power plants, electricity supply increasingly fluctuates and electricity prices are more volatile. There is, hence, a need for securing the electricity supply before energy storage solutions become widespread. Electricity price fluctuations, moreover, affect operating income of nuclear power plants due to their inherent operational inflexibility. Since the anticipated new applications of hydrogen in fuel cell vehicles and steel production, producing hydrogen has become a potential source of income, particularly when there is a surplus supply of electricity at low prices. The feasibility of investing in hydrogen production was investigated in a nuclear power plant, applying Swedish energy policy as background. The analysis applies a system dynamics approach incorporating the stochastic feature of electricity supply and prices. The study revealed that hydrogen production brings alternative opportunities for large-scale electricity production facilities in Sweden. Factors such as hydrogen price will be influential and require in-depth investigation. This study provides guidelines for power sector policymakers and managers who plan to engage in hydrogen production for industrial applications. Although this study was focused upon nuclear power sources, it can be extended to hydrogen production from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.
Highlights
Nuclear power is considered to be an option to help to achieve na tional CO2 emission reduction goals and, the transition into a renewable based energy system in Sweden1
In this study we focused upon centralized hydrogen production at a nuclear power plant
The utilization is defined as the proportion of the time, during which the electricity price will be lower than the switch price during the year, such that the power plant will switch from electricity production to hydrogen production
Summary
Nuclear power is considered to be an option to help to achieve na tional CO2 emission reduction goals and, the transition into a renewable based energy system in Sweden (cf. Tlili et al, 2019b). Never theless, the operating characteristics, such as the uncertainty of electricity supply and varying electricity prices, as well as the long-term policy pertaining to development of a future energy profile should be developed and used for evaluating the costs and benefits of the proposed project associated with renewables. The energy profile, the stochastic feature of supply and demand will affect future prices of electricity, which will further define the time intervals for producing hydrogen in a nuclear power plant. To derive the utilization factor of a hydrogen production facility, the au thors had to predict the long-term development of electricity prices and their variance For this purpose, we used the system dynamics model of Tang and Rehme (2017) to simulate and to gain insight into the feasi bility of utilizing a hydrogen production facility linked to a nuclear power plant with scenarios:. The results of the study provide guidelines for the nuclear power sector policymakers, as well as for business developers who wish to develop hydrogen production for in dustrial and transportation applications
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