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Wind Power to Generate Hydrogen in New Research Project

May 11, 2006 | 16 Comments

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Washington, DC [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Xcel Energy recently signed a cooperative agreement for an innovative "wind to hydrogen" research, development and demonstration project. Researchers will analyze and compare hydrogen production from wind power and the electric grid. The hydrogen will be produced through electrolysis -- the process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity.

"One unique feature of this system is the direct connection between the wind turbine and the electrolyzer, which will make the system more efficient."

-- Ben Kroposki, NREL's Center for Electric and Hydrogen Technologies and Systems, senior engineer

The agreement supports the President's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, which seeks to develop the hydrogen, fuel cell and infrastructure technologies needed to make it practical and cost-effective for Americans to choose to use fuel cell vehicles by 2020.

The new wind-electrolysis system will be at NREL's National Wind Technology Center, where hydrogen will be produced, compressed and stored to be used as a vehicle fuel or to generate electricity. The project will compare electrolyzer technologies and researchers will examine issues related to system efficiency, integration, compression, storage, cost and the use of a mixture of hydrogen and natural gas.

"One unique feature of this system is the direct connection between the wind turbine and the electrolyzer, which will make the system more efficient," said Ben Kroposki, senior engineer at NREL's Center for Electric and Hydrogen Technologies and Systems.

This partnership combines NREL's expertise in renewable energy and hydrogen with Xcel Energy's expertise in energy conversion, transmission, distribution and use. Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy plans to add 1,200 megawatts of wind energy capacity in Colorado, Minnesota and Texas by the end of 2007.

"Xcel Energy is the nation's leading wind energy utility with 2,300 megawatts of capacity planned for our system by the end of next year," said Frank Novachek, director of Corporate Planning at Xcel Energy. "This project will help us explore how we can leverage clean, renewable, yet intermittent power sources like wind into a more valuable resource for our utility customers."

Xcel Energy plans to invest more than $1.25 million in the project. NREL and the Department of Energy plan to invest approximately $750,000.

Additional Information

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16 Reader Comments

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1 of 16

rhys-marshall-45142

May 11, 2006

It really depends on wheather or not the potential energy of hydrogen is greater then the amount of energy needed to create it. If so then this is brilliant news. Even if it isn't so, then at least hydrogen is an easily transported fuel source. Much better than trying to strap solar panel on your car. And much better than using a sail to try to harness the wind for transport.

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james-levis-40460

May 11, 2006

I think this approach of combining wind and hydrogen production and/or solar and hydrogen is absolutely the right direction to head.

Hydrogen can be used to buffer the inevitable lulls in wind or solar generating capacity and the resultant H2O can be recaptured and cycled back into the system for further electrolysis

Do people think this is feasible for domestic (home) energy production i.e. a mini solar+hydrogen generator?

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3 of 16

james-levis-40460

May 12, 2006

Troy,

You own Krystal Planet I bellieve? Are you aware of any domestic products or research into domestic products which combine solar and hydrogen production. I thought a year or so ago I read about a "Hydrolyzer" that was being worked on in Canada but haven't been able to find any more about it.

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4 of 16

customer-service-11594

May 12, 2006

It's about time!

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5 of 16

laurel-duran-32159

May 12, 2006

Yes, it has been exciting to watch the development of hydrogen storage (e.g., Energy Conversion Devices metal hydride nano-tubes which are hand-held and easily stored in a vehicle glove box). More to come!

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6 of 16

craig-morris-42650

May 12, 2006

Electrolysis is pretty darn efficient, and so is using hydrogen in fuel cells, without the side effects of pollution and greenhouse gases whose astronomical long term costs merely get passed on to others in various insidious forms - making fossil fuels look to some like the free lunch it is not. The real hurdles are in finding a way to dramatically increase the density of hydrogen safely. While some fears about hydrogen are probably misguided vestiges of the Hindenburg disaster, more transportation safety questions arise from the super high pressures required to compress hydrogen gas in order to carry a reasonable amount of energy. If the hydrogen could be stored in solid form at high enough density, and converted to gas when needed - like airline oxygen generators - then it would be easier I think.

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adrian-carr-51131

May 13, 2006

Thanks Nick for your reply, I take your points. I was only in the world of theory as a retired math/physics teacher. The engineering needed to make things actually happen is indeed a huge leap in the world of reality. My brother once owned a large CAT excavator and I marvelled at the capabilities of its hydraulic pump - and the endurance and reliability of such a relatively compact unit as it applied about 300 hp to crawl, lift, dig and pull. In the twelve years of nearly 24/ 365 operation it never faultered. Any wonder I was impressed! On quiet days I envisaged that a bank of DC generators would be turned off to suit the wind speed. I will not correspond on this topic again for fear of boring readers. I have enjoyed this discussion. Thanks again Nick,
Adrian

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roy-bauer-40438

May 13, 2006

This is a better battery for fuel that will power the next generation of almost end less posabilitys. The word may just start turning around and going in the right direction now. Iwould like to see this alpied to all around the world. JUST THINK FREE POWER.

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nick-tastad-41902

May 13, 2006

Back to the Hydrogen..... I agree completely that this is the right track. However, as opposed to transporting the pure H2, why not hitch it to a Carbon carrier and ship it as methanol for "eventual" consumption? Only minor infrastructure changes needed from this point on and none of the freezing/compressing issues of H2.

Nick Tastad
2020 Institute
www.2020institute.org

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nick-tastad-41902

May 13, 2006

Hi Adrian

Good thoughts, but it would be the same as your standard car. Manual transmissions are more efficient because there's less of a heat/friction loss. The real money behind a wind turbine (not that I speak from industry experience) is designing a system that's moving at up to hundreds of Mph at the tip of the blade 300 feet above the earth without the thing flying to pieces. True generators have costs, but I think those would be outweighed by pumps, friction loss, heat dissapators, filters, fluid, and the fact that the system would have to be designed to go from 20 very insignificant contributions on a calm day to 20 significant contributions on a windy day leading to a cumulative system requirement that would be so large, it couldn't help but be very expensive to design, produce and maintain.

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adrian-carr-51131

May 13, 2006

As a PS to my post:- It's late at night here. Of course the electrolysis current would have to be DC. Thanks for the opportunity to contribute to your great site. Adrian Carr

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adrian-carr-51131

May 13, 2006

I agree with this use of wind power to produce Hydrogen by electrolysis. My suggestion offers the chance to allow the wind turbines to collectively drive individual hydraulic pumps instead of each driving an alternator. The pumped fluid could be piped to a pressured reservoir on the ground where one large alternator could be driven by one large Hydraulic pump. So for 20+ wind turbines you need only 1 alternator. This would make each turbine enormoursly simpler and cheaper. Could some engineer there give reasons why this method would not be more effective? The rest of the process would then proceed as planned. I think the savings would be considerable - but, I may be wrong. I have been before!

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roy-bauer-40438

May 14, 2006

Adrian please this is the type of things that need to be brought out into the world . If it was not for us to think up such Ideas then nothing would be done. We cannot allow the Big corporations to take all of the credit.
We are the ones that make the world go round and if we stop now then the word may stop also. We do not want this to happen now do we? JUST KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

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garry-barbuto-46125

May 14, 2006

Great to see Hydrogen moving up the agenda. Hydrogen is the PERFECT fuel and eneregy storage medium for Renewable Energy. What is need is a national Hydrogen grid as we have an electricity grid. The hydrogen can be used in homes for cooking, heating, boosting solar hot water systems, and even air conditioning. It can be compressed to fill the family fuel cell vehicle and can even be used localy via fuel cells to produce electric power. It requires a bit of a shift in thinking, but just image all renewable energy sources producing hydrogen and feeding into a national H2 grid. All the problems with intermittent supply and storage of renewables would be solved. The H2 can be used directly in so many applications with ZERO pollution and ZERO green house gases.

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phillip-mather-jr-9606

May 15, 2006

Great thinkings !

Any chance on some Public Lands out-west someone would be willing to "GRUB-STEAK" real world 21st Century thinking on H2. Headed up by someone with no corporate-oil.....AX TO GRIND, free to build.....turbines, solar panels, bio digesters, ethanol stills, biomass to electricity via high temp combustion, crop research , reflectors , troughs , waste-water recovery, trash recovery....etc....Has everyone forgotten St. Lewis......years ago they started before any of the new technology....WERE MAKING TREMENDOUS STRIDES without H2 or solar...what could they do with H2 and solar and wind !

I for one will have passed my exit physical for this world long before anyone can dream of independence.....BUT OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDS !!! ??

Is this race not growing more serious by the second ?
I think so, and I know everyone will be on board when petrol hits 10 USD's ! Remember H20 is way over that now !

Respectfully submitted, prm jr.

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harry-bryant-50096

June 24, 2006

I am a premier proponent of the use of hydrogen generated from non-fossil sources, and I think it is the only way to go for a clean future. But, as I have thought about the massive use of H2 that will at least equal that of petroleum, questions come to mind. There will inevitably be leakage and spills of H2. What would be the environmental empact of this? Does H2 react with O3 resulting in further O3 depletion? Are there other unknowns? Or, would H2 react with NOx to produce, say, dilute NH4OH which might have a beneficial impact of neutralizing the effects of many years of acid rain? What would be the effect of massive amounts of water vapor in the air? Would the humidity in AZ turn it into a jungle? Would clouds form and block the sun? Would condensers of some sort be required so that water would be reclaimed and sold to the middle east rather than draining the Great Lakes? We're few years from the H2 economy, but questions asked up front can help avoid problems.

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