Techno-economic analysis of the effect of a novel price-based control system on the hydrogen production for an offshore 1.5 GW wind-hydrogen system

Abstract

The cost of green hydrogen production is very dependent on the price of electricity. A control system that can schedule hydrogen production based on forecast wind speed and electricity price should therefore be advantageous for large-scale wind-hydrogen systems. This work presents a novel price-based control system integrated in a techno-economic analysis of hydrogen production from offshore wind. A polynomial regression model that predicts wind power production from wind speed input was developed and tested with real-world datasets from a 2.3 MW floating offshore wind turbine. This was combined with a mathematical model of a PEM electrolyzer and used to simulate hydrogen production. A novel price-based control system was developed to decide when the system should produce hydrogen and when it should sell electricity to the grid. The model and control system can be used in real-world wind-hydrogen systems and require only the forecast wind speed, electricity price and selling price of hydrogen as inputs. 11 test scenarios based on 10 years of real-world wind speed and electricity price data are proposed and used to evaluate the effect the price-based control system has on the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH). Both current and future (2050) costs and technologies are used, and the results show that the novel control system lowered the LCOH in all scenarios by 10–46%. The lowest LCOH achieved with current technology and costs was 6.04 $/kg H2. Using the most optimistic forecasts for technology improvements and cost reductions in 2050, the model estimated a LCOH of 0.96 $/kg H2 for a grid-connected offshore wind farm and onshore hydrogen production, 0.82 $/kg H2 using grid electricity (onshore) and 4.96 $/kg H2 with an off-grid offshore wind-hydrogen system. When the electricity price from the period 2013–2022 was used on the 2050 scenarios, the resulting LCOH was approximately twice as high.