Offshore wind energy prospects for power-to-direct air capture and power-to-gas

Abstract

Direct air capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) is technically a feasible solution for reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations at scale, building on decades of global research. However, powering such systems even partially with CO2-intensive fossil fuels results in more CO2 emissions. This paper presents a novel energy management strategy (EMS) to further explore modular offshore wind energy off Canada's West Coast via power-to-direct air capture and power-to-gas systems. The system architecture includes a 15 MW wind turbine paired with a hydrogen energy storage system, i.e. hydrogen production and storage, and direct air capture (DAC) units. Hydrogen production from wind generation is stored and used to offer two key benefits: to deliver the thermal loads of the DAC system, and to meet hydrogen demand for external consumers. The proposed EMS offers an extra degree of freedom to operate the designed system by setting the priority either to maximize the amount of CO2 capture or to maximize the amount of H2 production for external consumers. In particular, the study incorporates dynamic mathematical modeling and constraints formulation for the aforementioned scenarios; DAC priority for CO2 capture and H2 for external hydrogen demand satisfaction. The effectiveness of the proposed EMS is shown through extensive simulations with different seasonal conditions.