Project Summary
Renewable hydrogen and energy storage options are widely regarded as critical toachieving the UK's 2050 net-zero target. For project developers planning offshore-wind/hydrogen production facilities, an abundance of design choices andconfigurations exist, each of which has advantages and disadvantages, andquestions remain about how to integrate electrolysers/energy storage devices intothe existing energy system. These include (i) where best to locate these systems,(ii) what enabling technologies are required to deploy them efficiently, (iii) how tovalidate/demonstrate novel enabling technologies, and (iv) how to efficiently incorporate the resultant hydrogen into the existing gas network while minimising the costs of a secure, resilient, multi-vector energy system.
Answering these questions requires a whole system approach, which the projectseeks to take via three primary work streams:
1) Defining the optimal methods of exporting energy from an offshore-wind farm inthe context of value for money for customers.
2) Defining the energy carrying characteristics of electricity vs hydrogen toestablish the cost drivers and identify opportunities for cost reduction.
3) Understanding the impact on the gas/electricity networks of the imminentincrease in renewable generation into the network and how strategic deploymentof electrolysers, energy storage devices, and novel enabling technologies canreduce energy network investment requirements.
The projects longer-term aim is to support Kinewell to build on their expertise andexisting IP to develop a novel, technology-agnostic planning tool to helpdevelopers establish the optimal configuration and additional technologyrequirements on a case-by-case basis. This will significantly reduce costsassociated with offshore-wind/hydrogen production and its integration into the gas network, strengthening the UK's energy system robustness to support efficient roll out of new infrastructure (Theme 2) and accelerating the net-zerotransition.
Discovery phase success will enhance the team's understanding of how green hydrogen can effectively deliver net-zero at the lowest cost to consumers, which will provide focus for subsequent phases that will develop and demonstrate the planning tool and demonstrate/validate novel enabling technologies to maximise the tool's impact.
HyCoRe brings together eight partners with expertise encompassing gas/electricity network distribution operation, offshore-wind technology development/commercialisation, offshore-wind design optimisation, green hydrogen project development, cost modelling and business case development, infrastructure mapping, and supply chain development. The team possess keyskills required to deliver HyCoRe, and to deploy the tool, and any enabling technologies identified, for the benefit of the UK energy system, and ultimately the consumer.
Innovation Justification
Despite the growing acceptance that green hydrogen from offshore-wind haspotential to be a major source of the overall flexibility required to balance a zero-carbon energy system, literature regarding integrating wind energy andelectrolysis is limited and there is currently a poor understanding of, and noconsensus on, where to optimally place electrolysers and energy storage devicesto maximise their impact on energy system resilience.
This project seeks to address this by taking a whole system approach, performing a detailed exploration of the optimal placement of electrolysers/grid-scale energy storage. The purpose is to acquire new knowledge, which will be applied in subsequent phases to develop an algorithmic planning tool to allow offshore-wind/hydrogen project developers to establish the optimised configuration when accounting for site-specific conditions. The project is novel in that no such toolcurrently exists.
For different potential configurations, the tool will quantify achievable reductions incable/pipeline lengths and compare this against cost implications in other areas ofthe system, to produce an economically optimised design for offshore-wind/hydrogen production facilities, de-risking capital projects and identifying potential cost savings. This builds on software tools previously developed by SME partner Kinewell and will significantly enhance their existing offering to the energy sector.
Wide-scale tool deployment will offer significant economic value to project developers/energy network operators in the form of CAPEX/OPEX reduction, which will ultimately benefit the consumer via reduced energy costs. An alternative scenario, where key project development decisions are taken based on traditional, manual, wind-farm planning approaches, means that cost and efficiency savings achievable by use of an automated digital tool will be lost. A sub-optimal generation facility and network integration strategy will increase CAPEX/OPEX, making offshore-wind/hydrogen production less attractive to developers and investors. Ultimately this will slow/stall the deployment of green hydrogen projects, to the detriment of the energy network sustainability and resilience, the environment, the UK green economy and wider society including future adopters of hydrogen.
As a new-to-market technology development project, HyCoRe is currently deemedtoo risky to be funded by other means. Success will provide confidence in ourapproach, accelerating the development/deployment of the tool, benefiting the consumer in multiple ways. Further, identifying enabling technology gaps, and supporting UK companies to demonstrate/validate promising novel solutions (usingOREC's Blyth facility), will develop/benefit the wider UK supply-chain. This project is well aligned to SIF funding; other funding routes are designed to support a single/small group of technology developers.
Project Benefits
How will your project deliver net benefits to consumers?
Expected project benefits described in Q5 will be tracked from a high-level perspective at the discovery stage, as described below. As the project progresses, a strategy for fully quantifying project benefits using the ENA's whole system cost benefit analysis model will be developed.
Financial--future reductions in the cost of operating the networks; cost savings/annum on energy bills for consumers; cost savings/annum for users of network services.
Financial benefits will be tracked during Discovery by costing sub-optimal configurations against the optimal configurations. This will allow us to estimate cost savings associated with planning tool usage. We will link these to relevant aspects of network operation, network service users, and consumers. Using numerical optimisation techniques, Kinewell Energy typically add value of circa 20% of cable system CAPEX reduction through use of their existing KLOC tool. Based on Kinewell's experience of tool development, the value-add at different stages of product development and the proposed analysis of this project, we anticipate cost reduction in the region of 3-6%.
Based on KLOC experience, through digitalisation and automation, a digitalplanning tool can enable productivity gains for planning teams (including engineers and consultants). This weakens constraints on people required todeliver net zero and should reduce future energy infrastructure project planning costs and increase the speed of project progression from feasibility to implementation. Ultimately, this means delivering value to end-consumers through digital tools and automation.
Environmental--carbon reduction: direct CO2 savings/annum; indirect CO2savings/annum.
Environmental Benefits will be tracked by estimating the emissions of both optimal and suboptimal configurations and categorising these as direct or in-direct savings.
Revenues--creation of new revenue streams ;improved access to revenuesfor users of network services
During this initial assessment, we will estimate the value of the new revenue streams in an optimal configuration vs a non-optimal configuration, i.e., the delta.
New to market--products, processes, and services
During Discovery, OREC will review technology gaps and/or technology development opportunities to build-out optimised systems and estimate how many additional technology products and services (in addition to the planning tool) couldbe developed, some of which would be validated at their Blyth-based hydrogentest facility as a result of long-term project delivery beyond Discovery. Progression to Alpha will allow identification of potential new products/services that would be taken forward for development and validation, and a target number of new products and services to emerge from Beta will be set.
