Wind Farm-based Green Hydrogen: A Virtual Power Plant Case Study

Abstract

Decarbonization of the energy sector requires further wind farms for electricity generation. Green hydrogen can assist in many aspects, such as overcoming the uncertainty of wind generation. In this study, the concept of a virtual power plant (VPP), including a wind farm, electrical energy storage, power-to-hydrogen, hydrogen-to-power, and gas network, is investigated to exploit the full potential of wind farms. The gas network will play the role of virtual green hydrogen storage for the wind farm operator (WFO). The WFO interacts with two main electricity markets, namely the day-ahead electricity market, to sell the major share of production, and the balancing electricity market, to handle the deviations. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed model in decreasing the deviations of WFOs to deliver the required electrical power committed to the electricity market, thus increasing their profit. Moreover, sensitivity analyses performed on the conversion ratio of the power-to-hydrogen show that the profit of WFO will increase with improvement in this parameter.