Future Energy Market Research Articles

A SWOT Analysis of the Green Hydrogen Market

Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has heavily depended on fossil fuels. Recognizing the negative environmental impacts of the unmoderated consumption of fossil fuels, including global warming and consequent climate change, new plans and initiatives have been established to implement renewable and sustainable energy sources worldwide. This has led to a rapid increase in the installed solar and wind energy capacity. However, considering the fluctuating nature of these renewable energy sources, green hydrogen has been proposed as a suitable energy carrier to improve the efficiency of energy production and storage. Thus, green hydrogen, produced by water electrolysis using renewable electricity, is a promising solution for the future energy market. Moreover, it has the potential to be used for the decarbonization of the heavy industry and transportation sectors. Research and development (R&D) on green hydrogen has grown considerably over the past few decades, aiming to maximize production and expand its market share. The present work uses a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis to evaluate the current status of the green hydrogen market. The external and internal factors that affect its market position are assessed. The results show that green hydrogen is on the right track to becoming a competitive alternative to fossil fuels soon. Supported by environmental benefits, government incentives, and carbon taxes, roadmaps to position green hydrogen on the energy map have been outlined. Nevertheless, increased investments are required for further R&D, as costs must be reduced and policies enforced. These measures will gradually decrease global dependency on fossil fuels and ensure that roadmaps are followed through.

Energy supply structure optimization of integrated energy system considering load uncertainty at the planning stage

Under the trend of global carbon neutrality, the integrated energy system with the characteristics of multi-energy scheduling and gradient utilizing will be widely constructed and applied in the future energy market. For the construction of energy systems in emerging building complex, this paper analyzes the load probability characteristics of regional building complex at the planning stage, and conducts an aggregation analysis of its multiple uncertainties, and obtains the conclusion that the load factor at time t obeys the normal distribution. In order to formulate this uncertainty, this paper combines the case study with the scenario analysis method containing scenario generation and reduction to transform the stochastic programming model into several deterministic models and analyses the discrepancies of the optimization results under different objectives and different load variances. The results show that after considering load-side uncertainty, the total system capacity increases by 7 %, the total investment under the minimum investment objective by 4 %, and the carbon emission under the minimum carbon emission objective by 3 %. In addition, the system needs to pay 32.8 % of the total investment increment to obtain 80 % carbon reduction when adopting carbon emissions as the objective.

Peer-to-peer multi-period energy market with flexible scheduling on a scalable and cost-effective blockchain

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) electricity trading is an emerging means for allowing communities to share local energy production and demand response through direct trading. It is projected to play an important role in the future energy market by increasing the incentive to own and operate distributed energy resources (DERs) and participate in demand response (DR). A common approach to implementing P2P trading is with blockchain, however, existing solutions feature limitations. Typically, concerns involve either scalability and high transaction costs or projects implementing a permissioned blockchain that does not provide the trust and decentralization desired. In addition, the majority of market designs are simplified and do not capture the distinct complexity of electricity markets. They do not consider the inter-temporal constraints of appliances and DERs that need to run for multiple periods. Complex market designs that address these issues have not been implemented in blockchain based systems due to the computational limitations of such systems. To improve these two aspects, this paper proposes a market formulation that supports products running multiple periods with flexible scheduling, modeled as a mixed integer linear programming problem that optimizes social welfare. The trading platform is then implemented as a side chain of Polkadot, a network of blockchains designed to be secure, scalable, and economically feasible to foster an ecosystem of application-specific sidechains. This design is demonstrated to improve social welfare and achieve scalability by benchmarking the number of transactions that can be included per second, based upon typical assumptions of the market size. The result is a decentralized and performant system that allows for complex market designs to be implemented in a blockchain environment. This approach simplifies the process for participants, allowing them to bid DER or DR devices, directly and easily, even when this requires constraints across periods.

Current Research Status on The Production, Storage, And Application of Hydrogen Energy

With the development of society, the demand for energy has significantly increased, and the hydrogen energy industry is an important engine for optimizing energy structure and promoting the transformation of traditional energy. Hydrogen energy is a clean and renewable energy source with abundant sources. The unit mass of hydrogen contains a large amount of energy and can be applied in a wide range of fields. Therefore, analyzing and comparing the hydrogen energy industry chain will contribute to the healthy development of the hydrogen energy industry. This article first investigates the initial stage of development, current situation, and policies of hydrogen energy in China, Japan, and the United States, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the research status and planning of hydrogen energy in different countries. Secondly, the current mature hydrogen production methods (reforming hydrogen, electrolysis hydrogen) and hydrogen storage methods (high-pressure hydrogen storage, solid-state material hydrogen storage, organic liquid hydrogen storage materials) Hydrogen application are analyzed, and their advantages are proposed. Finally, based on research analysis, the future hydrogen energy market is introduced. This research result also provides certain reference value for enterprises that need to transform and enter the hydrogen energy field.

Facile eco-friendly process for upcycled sustainable perovskite solar cells

Developing a green technology to eliminate the impact of the toxic element Pb and harmful solvent is a challenge for sustainable perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, we report a facile eco-friendly process for upcycled sustainable PSC by screening the polar Pb solubilizers (N,N-dimethylformamide, DMF, dimethyl sulfoxide, DMSO and butylamine, BA) coupling with multi-function potassium iodide (KI) precipitator. We find that DMF with strong Pb-dissolution capacity and weak coupled C = O − Pb adhesion exhibits superb separation and recovery of Pb from obsolete PSC devices. Subsequent closed-loop management of the DMF completely eliminates its potential harm to the ecological environment. Interestingly, the KI precipitator added to the Pb-containing DMF solution not only induces the formation of high-quality PbI2 and thus high-crystallized defect-less perovskite matrix, but also relieves the residual tensile strain stemming from lattice expansion leading to orderly lattice orientation for perovskite crystallization. As a result, the re-fabricated PSC based on recovered components (PbI2, ITO and Ag) shows a PCE of 22.78 % higher than that (20.76 %) of PSC based on fresh components, also exceeding the reported record efficiency of PSCs based on one or more recovered components. Such a stable, environment-friendly, upcycled process of retired PSCs offers a sustainable pathway for eliminating the adverse factors such as toxic Pb leakage and harmful solvent effluence, and thus boost their competitiveness in future energy market.

Highly efficient double-side-passivated perovskite solar cells for reduced degradation and low photovoltage loss

Hybrid metal halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are the most promising candidates to share the future energy market with silicon solar cells thanks to their excellent photovoltaic (PV) properties in single junction and tandem applications. Although PSCs are already highly efficient, their performance can be further improved by passivating the perovskite boundaries and improving current-voltage hysteresis. Here, we implement a double-sided passivation approach to enhance the performance of n-i-p structured PSCs, showing how passivating on either side improves cell performance. The electron-collecting side was passivated with biphenyl-4,4 -dicarboxylic acid (BPDC), and n-octyl ammonium bromide was used to passivate the hole-collecting side. The power conversion efficiency of the champion cell improved from 18.7 % for control to 20.9 % when double-sided passivation was implemented. Surface imaging showed how the surface boundaries improved following passivation, resulting in better open circuit voltages (VOC) and fill factors. In addition, passivation creates a barrier for ion migration, improving J-V hysteresis and stability in the process. The champion cell displayed a VOC of 1192 mV with double-sided passivation, incurring only ∼390 mV loss, thereby achieving a high VOC with a mid-bandgap perovskite. Preliminary degradation testing in ambient conditions shows that double-sided passivation also improves the stability of the cells by impeding ion migration.

Techno-economic assessment of a biomass gasification-based polygeneration system for greenhouses

Decentralized biorefineries are an attractive solution to reduce the carbon footprint of agricultural greenhouses, by converting the abundant local residual biomass into value-added products such as biofuels. While the thermodynamic performance of many biomass system configurations has been investigated in the literature, techno-economic assessments are needed to validate the potential of such facilities. This approach is applied to a small-scale polygeneration system for the use-case of a southern Quebec greenhouse. The polygeneration system can produce heat, electricity, methanol, hydrogen, and a CO2-rich stream. A TRNSYS model is used to simulate the heat demand of a 20 000 m2 greenhouse. The work presented here compares the polygeneration system with a conventional solution based on biomass combustion. Nine configurations between 1120 and 5600 kW of thermal output power are investigated for both system types. Twenty-seven market scenarios are generated from the combination of three pricing scenarios for electricity, methanol, and hydrogen: pessimistic, baseline, and optimistic. Fixed capital investment (FCI), operation expenses (OPEX), and NPV are presented. In the most pessimistic market scenario, the best polygeneration system would have an NPV of −8.2 M CAD. In the baseline and optimistic scenarios, the same polygeneration system would have an NPV of 17.6 M CAD and 40.2 M CAD, respectively. By comparison, the best combustion-based solution would have the highest NPV at −5.0 M CAD. Those results highlight that small decentralized polygeneration systems are promising. However, their profitability is heavily dependent on future energy market developments.

Optimal design of micro pumped-storage plants in the heart of a city

Growth in renewable energy generation leads to an urgent need of expanding energy storage capacity. While large pumped hydro storage remains the most established and prevalent energy storage method, there is potential for evaluating its applicability on a micro scale in urban areas. This study develops a multi-objective optimisation model in Python to assess the feasibility of micro pumped-storage (MPS) for high-rise buildings up to 300 m in height, considering different future energy market conditions. The findings indicate that increasing electricity tariff values lead to improved solutions from both environmental and financial perspectives across all building heights. However, for buildings 50 m or less, the MPS is currently considered economically unviable. In a world first, this study examines the techno-economic viability of MPS systems as a function of building height and different water storage types, including modular tanks, multilayer green roofs, blue roofs, and nearby streams. The MPS system using modular tanks and nearby streams boasts the shortest payback period (4.8 years) and Net Present Value of A$ 600 k over the MPS lifetime. The study provides insights into feasible flow rates and storage sizes. The findings are valuable for designers, helping them decide if MPS is feasible based on the building's height and features.

Bursting into the Public Eye: Analyzing the Development of Renewable Energy Research Interests

Renewable energies (RE) are rapidly reforming the power sector because they have become more economically competitive, thereby enabling nations to overcome high dependence on energy imports (i.e. reducing energy security concerns), as well as reducing their negative environmental footprints. Therefore, both the public and private sectors need to uncover the future technological trajectory of renewable energy. As part of an entity-linking approach, this paper examines REs developments from 2000 to 2021 and explores high-potential topics by analyzing hot topics during the period to identify evolutionary trends of relevant research interests (using published research papers). The results are analyzed and classified to determine how and when RE development issues “burst” into the public eye. The article tells the story of RE development from the past, the present, and the likely future hot topics for research. We analyze the results and cluster them into five categories: (1) energy sources, (2) sustainable development, (3) technological developments, (4) supply chains, and (5) energy management systems.se Findings reveal signals about the potential future energy market shifts and how REs evolve and contribute to the market. Signals are converted to policies and future market interpretations using an expert-based process. Analysis and methodology outcomes reveal that digital technologies have become an important factor in market changes. The findings of the study highlight how sustainable development actions and digital technologies will likely transform RE supply and management.

Environmental and economic analysis of sector-coupling battery energy storage systems used for frequency containment reserve

Battery energy storage systems (BESSs) are advocated as crucial elements for ensuring grid stability in times of increasing infeed of intermittent renewable energy sources (RES) and are therefore paving the way for more sustainable energy systems. Providing frequency containment reserve (FCR) is an attractive business model for capital intensive stationary BESSs, but the current German FCR regulative framework restricts the BESS usage for other applications as capacity shares have to be reserved (FCR energy capacity requirement). Hence, stationary BESSs operating at the FCR market are not fully utilised from an economic and environmental perspective. Linking BESSs with other sectors as potential sinks such as power-to-heat modules or electrolysers, enables unlimited energy infeed and is discussed as potential means to diminish this constraint. Whilst, a couple of studies investigated the economic advantages of such sector-coupling BESSs, their environmental consequences were hardly analysed so far. Based on the life cycle thinking approach, the environmental and economic impacts of FCR provision in Germany by standalone and sector-coupling BESSs (i.e. with power-to-heat unit or electrolyser) were studied in this work. The sector-coupling BESSs were considered regarding different FCR energy capacity requirements (E/P ratios). It was shown that the CAPEX for the sector-coupling unit were primarily critical for the economic performance of BESSs favouring power-to-heat over electrolysers and standalone BESSs. The results of the environmental life cycle assessment indicated to potential benefits due to the reduced battery capacities depending on the varied FCR energy capacity requirement. The environmental implications of the operational stage showed that electrolysers can increase the environmental impacts by up to 10 % due to higher conversion losses compared to power-to-heat units. Finally, it was concluded that future energy system and market designs should foster the implementation of sustainable sector-coupling solutions considering technology-specific economic and environmental characteristics.

The green hydrogen revolution

Green hydrogen is considered the most suitable choice for the future energy market, both as energy storage media, energy vector and fuel for transportation, industry and other applications.In the last twenty years, increasing efforts have been dedicated to green hydrogen technologies development, but still today a number of issues are claimed in justifying the delay in its large scale application and the starvation of its market. Moreover, some new questions seem ready to be put on the table for justifying the delay in green hydrogen technologies applications.In this paper, a critical analysis of recent literature and institutional reports is carried out with the aim of understanding what is the real state of the play. In particular, peculiar advantages and shortcomings of different green hydrogen technologies (biomass pyrolysis and gasification, water electrolysis, etc.) have been analysed and compared, with a focus on the electrolysis process as the most promising method for large scale and distributed generation of hydrogen.Some geopolitical and economic aspects associated with the transition to a green hydrogen economy - including the feared exacerbation of the water crisis - have been widely examined and discussed, with the purpose of identifying approaches and solutions to accelerate the mentioned transition.

Potential of Salt Caverns for Hydrogen Storage in Southern Ontario, Canada

Salt caverns produced by solution mining in Southern Ontario provide ideal spaces for gas storage due to their low permeability. Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) is an important part of the future renewable energy market in Ontario in order to achieve global carbon neutrality and to fill the gap left by retiring nuclear power plants. However, large-scale hydrogen storage is still restricted by limited storage space on the ground’s surface. In this study, hydrogen’s physical and chemical properties are first introduced and characterized by low molecular weight, high diffusivity, low solubility, and low density. Then, the geological conditions of the underground reservoirs are analyzed, especially salt caverns. Salt caverns, with their inert cavity environments and stable physical properties, offer the most promising options for future hydrogen storage. The scales, heights, and thicknesses of the roof and floor salt layers and the internal temperatures and pressures conditions of salt caverns can affect stabilities and storage capacities. Finally, several potential problems that may affect the safe storage of hydrogen in salt caverns are discussed. Through the comprehensive analysis of the influencing factors of hydrogen storage in salt caverns, this study puts forward the most appropriate development strategy for salt caverns, which provides theoretical guidance for UHS in the future and helps to reduce the risk of large-scale storage design.

Net green energy potential of solar photovoltaic and wind energy generation systems

“Green energy” is the energy that can be produced while sustaining ecosystem services. Maintenance of the services provided by the ecosystem requires energy, termed the ecosystem maintenance energy (ESME). Including ESME costs in energy accounting enables assessment of an energy plant's ability to produce energy over and above inputs and EMSE costs over the lifetime of the plant. In this work, an assessment of the potential of two renewable energy plants wind and solar photovoltaic to produce “green energy” is undertaken, those were chosen due to their likely dominance of the future energy market. The assessment is done using a methodology that unifies environmental impact assessment, ESME and energy accounting into a single metric termed the green energy return on investment (EROIg). The paper also extends ESME calculation by incorporating ecosystem impacts that were previously unaccounted-for such as: biodiversity loss; delayed ecosystem maintenance; carbon capture by photosynthesis; ozone depletion and formation and ionizing radiation. The solar and wind energy plants considered were sized to produce an equivalent amount of annual energy and were placed at a theoretical location where the capacity factor (CF) is equivalent to the average global utility scale CF for each resource. The study found that onshore wind energy has a greater potential in generating green energy with an EROIg of 17.19. Removal of impacts related to biodiversity loss, which is included here for the first time, is found to play a critical role in plant assessment from both biodiversity and CO2 capture by photosynthesis perspective. Plants needing and providing biodiversity offsets are shown to provide an overall 18%–25% improvement in EROIg. This improvement is triggered by the corresponding CO2 capture by photosynthesis. Some design options were evaluated to determine the sensitivity of the resulting EROIg to the plant design and to the temporal element of the investigation. Those include the addition of battery storage and the delay in action on ecosystem maintenance from a 20-year to a 100-year time horizon which were found to reduce the resultant EROIg by >40% and >87% respectively.

Modeling and optimization of carbon-negative NGCC plant enabled by modular direct air capture

Natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants are the most prevalent source of electricity in the United States and are expected to continue playing a key role in the future energy market. However, they are also one of the main sources of CO2 emissions in the power market. Recently, the authors proposed a retrofit design for an existing NGCC to allow power generation with negative CO2 emissions by utilizing both post-combustion carbon capture (PCC) and direct air capture (DAC). The DAC unit captures CO2 directly from the atmosphere using low-grade heat from the NGCC via a novel heat integration scheme. The heat integration scheme and modular DAC design introduce significant flexibility, allowing the system to focus on either power generation or CO2 capture in response to electricity price changes. However, this creates a complex trade-off between the cost of DAC capacity and the enhanced operational flexibility it provides. In this work, we model the proposed retrofit systematically and co-optimize the design and operation of the system for an entire year under different electricity price signals and CO2 prices. The DAC operations are modeled with a novel formulation to account for the sorbent dynamics in its temperature swing cycles. The solutions for the resulting large-scale mixed-integer linear program show that a large DAC unit is preferred in most situations. The extra flexibility leads to longer dispatch time and higher profits compared with the base NGCC.

The value of forecasts for PV power plants operating in the past, present and future Scandinavian energy markets

When participating in the Scandinavian wholesale energy markets with intermittent PV power, imbalances between market-committed and actual energy generation need to be economically accounted for in the imbalance settlement. The market-committed energy is based on forecasts issued at specific timestamps defined by the market. The economic value of such forecasts can be quantified for the past, present and future energy market regulations by comparing the achieved income using perfect forecasts to the income with imperfect forecasts. Differences between these regulations include changing from 60 min to 15 min market intervals, and from a dual-price to a single-price imbalance settlement structure.PV power production data were modelled from meteorological measurements carried out at 11 locations in each of the Nord Pool bidding areas. Forecasts generated from a smart persistence model and a more sophisticated numerical weather prediction (NWP) model were compared for these locations, and the value of these forecasts was estimated from historical market data for each of the 11 bidding areas. The results show that the estimated income, and income losses, are dependent on the electricity mix of the bidding areas. In addition, the transition from the dual-price to the single-price imbalance settlement structure reduces the value of providing accurate forecasts. Moreover, the added incentive to provide accurate forecasts when settling the markets and imbalances on 15 min instead of 60 min intervals is negligible with the single-price imbalance settlement. Finally, the results show that intraday trading is generally beneficial for PV power plants in Scandinavia.

The development of micro and small modular reactor in the future energy market

Micro and Small Modular Reactor (MSMR) is an emerging energy technology that meets the requirements of market demand, safety, efficiency, and sustainability. This paper summarizes the advantages, application scenarios, and advanced technologies to support MSMR. Now that the energy market is more flexible and the requirements are more complex, while MSMR can meet the market demand and has a lower cost compared with other clean energies such as wind and solar photovoltaic. The United States is vigorously developing MSMRs into residential energy markets. The MSMR developed around the world has more than three generations of safety characteristics that have adopted passive safety features. MSMR can be manufactured in the factory which reduces construction schedule, cost, and waste. The nuclear fuel supply chain for MSMR is complete and perfect, including the front end and back end. An increasing number of advanced technologies support the development of MSMR, including advanced materials (TRISO fuel and accident-tolerance fuel), advanced control knowledges (DI&C, cybersecurity, and AI), and an advanced computational platform (MOOSE framework).

Optimizing Internal Energy Streams in Micro Gas Turbines in Cogeneration toward Flexible Heat-to-Power Ratio—Global Thermodynamic Performance Assessment and Specific Case Studies

Abstract Although the simultaneous production of heat and power, the so-called combined heat and power (CHP), is from a thermodynamic point of view still the most efficient energy conversion method, cogeneration units have nowadays problems to position themselves in the current and future energy market. The increasing renewable energy penetration requires CHP units to become more flexible, especially on their currently fixed heat-to-power ratio. Within this framework, micro-gas turbines (mGTs), as small-scale decentralized cogeneration units, offer opportunities. Since they use the recuperated Brayton cycle, they offer the theoretic option to adjust the internal heat streams to provide a flexible heat-to-power ratio as well as the unique feature of a tunable outlet temperature, making the unit feasible/interesting for a larger range of applications having a combined heat and power demand. Hence, in this paper, we assessed the impact of the use of a recuperator bypass for enhanced operational flexibility of mGT. In a first step, the optimal pathway for the recuperator bypass, i.e., cold or hot side bypass, is selected for a typical mGT, the Turbec T100 (currently commercially available as the AE-T100), considering both thermodynamics as well as technological feasibility. Moreover, the potential performance impact on the electrical and total efficiency is calculated as well as on the total available thermal power. In a second step, the specific performance of the option of using a recuperator bypass is assessed for two specific cases: flexible heat-to-power ratio at low temperature and high temperature, i.e., steam generation, cogeneration. Thermodynamic simulations show that the impact on the electric efficiency remains rather limited (maximal 6% absolute efficiency reduction for a 40% bypass ratio), while the available thermal energy and exergy increase significantly: up to 60% increase for thermal power and even 115% increase in the exergy content of the flue gases. Moreover, there is no distinct difference between cold or hot bypass, leaving the selection of the optimal bypass route a pure technical choice. Finally, considering the specific cases studied, simulation results show that heat-to-power ratio could be increased by more than 50% for all power outputs for the low temperature CHP applications, even resulting in a global efficiency increase, while for the high temperature case, recuperator bypass allows for a significant increase in steam production, at total efficiencies comparable to the separate production (i.e., boiler and grid), clearly highlighting the benefits and potential of a recuperator bypass.

Butane-based heat pump for advanced GTCC applications: static and dynamic model validation

The Thermochemical Power Group (TPG) of the University of Genoa is investigating innovative solutions to increase the flexibility of gas turbine combined cycles (GTCC) and extend their operative range by integrating large size high performance heat pumps. Achieving this goal would make GTCCs more competitive in the future energy market, which will be characterized by a heavy presence of non-dispatchable renewable energy sources.Within this framework, the authors designed and built a new experimental facility to emulate advanced GTCCs at laboratory scale, integrating a 100 kWel micro gas turbine (MGT), a 10 kWel heat pump (HP) and a 180 kWh cold thermal energy storage (TES), with scale-up equations and dynamic models, capable of hardware-in-the-loop tests.The focus of this article is on the HP, which uses n-butane (R600) as working fluid and can be used both to heat and cool down the MGT compressor intake. The HP features one superheater and a 6-cylinder reciprocating compressor, which rotational speed can be continuously varied from 900rpm to 1800rpm.A dynamic model of the HP was developed in TRANSEO, with dedicated Matlab-Simulink® models. This model includes all the components of the HP closed loop, making it possible to simulate its performance and monitor all the main process parameters, such as compressor operation and condensing pressure. This model can be used to simulate the HP in various conditions, including part-load and transient operations, and to aid the design of the advanced GTCC control system. The evaporator and condenser models solve a system of non-linear equations to compute pressure, temperature, and distribution of the different phases of the working fluid along the heat exchangers. Such phase distribution is computed following a moving boundary approach.An experimental campaign was carried out to collect data regarding the stationary performance of the HP. Values of COP and thermal power were analysed as a function of compressor speed and pressure at the condenser, keeping the conditions at the evaporator constant. Then, its transient behaviour was characterized, observing its response to step changes of both evaporator and condenser thermal loads. The model was then successfully calibrated and validated on both stationary and transient data, showing good accuracy.Based on these results, it will be possible to integrate the HP model within larger system simulation tools. Having an accurate digital twin of the whole GTCC integrating HPs and TES will make possible to develop and verify complex control logics on many different scenarios, relying on a safe model-in-the-loop setup, before actual implementation in the field.

Hybrid Hydrogen production: Application of CO2 heat pump for the high-temperature water electrolysis process

Hydrogen is considered an energy vector which ensures a pivotal role in the energy market in near future. As a subsequent, the need to provoke novel technologies and investigate the potential layouts rising from hybridization remains on the shoulder of research literature., The current work investigates the potential role of the supercritical CO2 heat pump to contribute to hydrogen production inside a hybrid energy system. The case study is a generic biogas power plant characterized by the combination of diverse hydrogen production technologies such as water electrolysis and the reforming process. Water electrolysis takes place through high (SOEC) and low-temperature(AEC) The role of the heat pump unit is defined to operate between these two technologies to recover heat losses and transfer them to high-temperature electrolysis. The performance of the CO2 cycle in the presented hybrid energy system is simulated via MATLAB SIMULINK and the effective indicators to improve its performance have been carried out.In the end, the result of the simulation shows a production rate of 19.27 kgH2/h. Furthermore, thanks to heat recovery the total thermal efficiency increases by 80%. It also reveals that the heat pump unit operates with COP in the range of 4.5 – 3.3 based on pressure ratios providing temperature in the range of 151-184 °C by fixing the cold sink input temperature and pressure at 70 °C, 75 bar respectively.

Microwave vs conventional heating in hydrogen production via catalytic dry reforming of methane

The world's energy systems are undergoing radical change driven by the commitments to achieve net zero emissions and energy independence. Development of clean hydrogen economy is of paramount importance and hydrogen is expected to play a more important role in the future energy market. An interesting way to produce hydrogen is via dry reforming reaction which uses two green house gasses (CH4 and CO2) as feedstock. Dry reforming is a challenging reaction to scale-up due to its high endothermic and coke formation nature. Microwave has gained interest in the past years as a superior heating mechanism in catalytic reactions due to its capacity in enhancing conversions of reactants and selectivity of products, and suppression of coke formation. Such characteristics has made microwave an excellent alternative to conventional heating in dry reforming reaction. In this study, we aim to discuss different aspects of microwave heating technology and its application in the catalytic dry reforming of methane. The advantages of microwave-assisted methane reforming are discussed via the comparison to the conventional heating.