Project Summary
This project will design and implement a Multi-Vector (Gas+ Electricity) Energy Hub that optimises devices across a truly whole system solution to increase network resilience, operating efficiency, and hosting capability by coordinating:
*renewable generation,
*battery storage,
*power to gas and gas to power, through a hydrogen electrolyser and peaking plant,
*gas storage,
This builds on the academic theory of Energy Hubs through detailed design and simulation, and when progressed to beta stage, will deliver a solution for holistic whole energy system planning & operation that has been calibrated and validated against a real-world demonstration.
Innovation Justification
The concept of Multi-Vector Energy Hubs has been presented previously at a conceptual level, however the challenge is that the concept is undemonstrated with enabling technologies and suitable application cases are difficult to identify. Therefore, the scale of the benefits that could be realised is unproven.
Many of the individual components of the proposed project are at a mature stage of TRL; electrolysers, batteries, and fuel cells have all been demonstrated individually, however, there is no instance of these technologies being fully integrated and operated as a single multi-vector optimised system, or had implementation models validated through combined modelling and demonstration.
This project concept (from Discovery to Beta) will address this gap, initially studying the feasibility, value and modelling requirements of Multi-Vector Energy Hubs, through to testing, detailed modelling, and then full network demonstration of the value that can be unlocked for consumers. The full value case of these concepts are yet to be defined, therefore progression of the concept within a BaU environment introduces significant risk to any ONO.
The project requires the gas and electricity networks to be considered as a single system and demonstration the coordination of new technology for the benefit of the whole system. Such an approach does not fit within the existing price control
programmes and requires novel commercial arrangements to facilitate cross vector flexibility and support across the networks.
The project outcomes are highly relevant to Ofgem's Regional Energy Strategic Planners and the Future System Operator, both of which will have responsibilities for holistic energy system planning.
This early stage of the project fits directly into the structure of the SIF challenge, with the initial feasibility and design stage being deliverable within the 3-month timeframe. Further phases will include the development (and trial validation) of multi-vector modelling methods that will allow network companies, and future local planning authorities, to identify sites for co-optimisation and to minimise network costs by doing so (Alpha phase). The final phase offers the unique opportunity to calibrate and validate the models through a functional energy hub deployed with collaboration between Northern Powergrid and Northern Gas Networks. This demonstration will provide invaluable knowledge on the technological capabilities required by utility companies for a future in which the energy transition creates fundamentally more interconnected and interdependent systems.
Impacts and Benefits
Financial - future reductions in the cost of operating the network.
Existing academic literature on Energy hubs strongly supports the expectation that they allow a reduction in costs by increasing the efficiency of both networks, reducing infrastructure and management costs. Introducing flexibility through new vectors can introduce additional scope for network optimisation and new sources of flexibility for grid balancing.
Financial - cost savings per annum on energy bills for consumers
In addition to the reduction in the need for infrastructural build arising from more efficient networks the use of hydrogen as a storage vector can significantly reduce the requirements for battery storage, (an expensive form of energy storage per MWh). Long duration storage is presently still a significant challenge in the transition to renewable forms of electricity increasing the benefits of converting excess electricity into hydrogen to be used either directly or stored until needed.
Environmental - carbon reduction -- direct CO2 savings per annum
Many proponents of fossil fuels point to the continued need for the use of natural gas in combined cycle gas turbines as a way of stabilising the electricity grid because of its highly controllable and dispatchable nature. Hydrogen can perform the same role within a system generating electricity from gas in a dispatchable way with no or low carbon emissions. A typical CCGT can return efficiencies of around 50% while a hydrogen fuel cell efficiency is quoted at between 40 and 60% efficiency with some demonstrations reaching as high as 68%.
Recent development of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies: A review - ScienceDirect (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352484721006053)
Revenues - improved access to revenues for users of network services
Hydrogen electrolysers have already been demonstrated successfully as a way of minimising curtailment to renewable generations when co-located in constrained network. An electrolyser is also a dispatchable form of demand that can contribute to grid stabilising services. Minimising curtailment allows generation users to maximise return on their investments (as well as maximizing low-carbon energy) and avoids the loss of that generation potential.
Revenues - creation of new revenue streams
Energy hubs will allow flexibility service providers to access the opportunity to arbitrage between different vectors, the value case for this will be defined and quantified as part of the Discovery phase of the project.
