By P Gosselin
The long road to green hydrogen
An article on NDR German public broadcasting clearly conveys the dimensions of hydrogen. It reports on a planned factory for green hydrogen in Neumünster.
A hydrogen factory with an output of 50 megawatts corresponds to the output of ten wind turbines, which means that the output of ten wind turbines can be stored. A hydrogen factory of this size could produce 3,000 tons of green hydrogen with an energy content of 100 gigawatt hours, says Prof. Oliver Opel from the West Coast University of Applied Sciences (FHW) in Heide. If the green hydrogen were burned, it could be used to heat 5,000 single-family homes per year. And the waste heat could be used to heat a further 2,500 houses, according to Opel. If electricity is made from the green hydrogen again and heat pumps are used, 7,500 single-family homes could be heated, as well as another 7,500 homes with the waste heat.”
To put this into perspective: Schleswig-Holstein has around 650,000 single-family homes, 80,000 two-family homes and 95,000 multi-family homes. It is in any case no surprise that high German electricity prices are an obstacle.
Prof. Oliver Opel heads the Institute for the Transformation of the Energy System, ITE, at the West Coast University of Applied Sciences in Heide. He says that the construction and operation of electrolysis plants are still too expensive. One crucial aspect is the high price of electricity. Opel explains: ‘In other European countries, the electricity price is much better. One option could be a division according to geographically different electricity price zones, as already exists in other countries.’
Opel also points to another problem: ‘The purchase prices for electrolysis systems have continued to rise, as they are nowhere near mass production.’”
The question of what the hydrogen and the electricity generated in this way will ultimately cost remains unanswered in the article. In any case, the country’s plans are ambitious. It would be a factor of 30 of the first project.
Schleswig-Holstein wants to achieve an electrolysis capacity of 1.5 gigawatts (1,500 megawatts) by 2030, according to the state government’s updated hydrogen strategy. The federal government has also set itself a target. By 2030, the government wants to achieve an electrolysis capacity of 10 gigawatts (10,000 megawatts) to cover the demand of 95 to 130 terawatt hours of electricity per year.
And according to the energy expert at the West Coast University of Applied Sciences, Oliver Opel, this is a real challenge, precisely because of the current poor framework conditions.”
So the road is not only long, but also expensive.
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It occurs to me that 10 wind turbines produce nothing when they’re idle, for some reason like low winds… And, when they are producing, storing what energy they produce as Hydrogen, or in batteries, means that energy isn’t being used elsewhere? So, you need turbines to produce energy to be stored as well as turbines to produce energy to be used immediately… and none of them will do anything when it’s still?
I was thinking along the same lines but wrt solar farms.
we know solar doesn’t work at night. So in a renewable world, the energy that comes
from the solar farm in the day has to be provided by something else at night.
add-in the need to charge-up storage systems and it seems to me the number of wind turbines required is massively more than the demand.
add-in the “wind must be blowing somewhere – just not here at the moment” problem then each “windy area” around the coast needs to have enough capacity – not simply assuming the total of all the windy areas is enough
and all of the above needs to be backed-up with dispatchable stand-by power for when the wind doesn’t blow anywhere
it seems to me that logically and economically this is no way to power a modern economy
As is being proved in Australia, the wind does NOT blow everywhere. Two of Australia’s grids, with the largest spread over thousands of kilometres, have clearly shown wind outages or dunkelflautes lasting up to 48 hours in some cases, across the entire grid.
googled that term
Smack-on, Graeme4 … and, notwithstanding, not only does solar not produce at night, but calm and low windspeeds are prevalent during the dark hours of the day … when all those EVs would be charging at home.
That professor is totally wrong
It is technically not possible and it is impossible to afford
Here are the capital costs just for New England for 15 years, because the whole setup would need to be replaced with new batteries
BATTERIES IN NEW ENGLAND TO COUNTERACT A ONE-DAY WIND/SOLAR LULL FOR A MERE $456 BILLION
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/batteries-in-new-england
A Wind/Solar Lull Lasting One Day in Winter in New England
If such a W/S lull occurs, batteries will make up the electricity shortfall
We assume, decades from 2024, NE has installed:
60000 MW of solar, which produce an annual average of 8700 MWh/h, at capacity factor = 0.145
60000 MW of onshore and offshore wind, which produce an annual average of 21000 MWh/h, at CF = 0.35
120000 MW of W/S providing an average of 29700 MW throughout the year
We assume,
– During a W/S lull, the production will be only 10% of these values during winter, which frequently has days with very little wind, and snow on most panels
– Average electricity fed to the grid is 21000 MW (about 8% more than user demand), on a January day, and Average W/S output fed to the grid is 0.1 x (21000 + 8700) = 2970 MW
– W/S power shortfall is 21000 – 2970 = 18030 MW
– W/S electricity shortfall is 24 x (21000 – 2970) = 432720 MWh
Batteries are rated to provide a level of power for a period of time, or MW/MWh, delivered as AC
Our battery rating is at least 18030 MW / (432720 MWh/0.6), delivered as AC
There are Tesla design factors that reduce rating, but we will ignore them, for simplicity.
Tesla recommends not charging to more than 80% full, and not discharging to less than 20% full
That means the recommended maximum delivered electricity is 0.6 of rating.
We assume the battery is 75% full, at start of lull, and is drawn down to 15% full, in 24 hours, i.e., 0.6 of rating is drawn out of the battery, as AC, if we are lucky.
But that withdrawal must be reduced by 9%, due to battery loss, DC/AC loss, step-up transformer loss
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
NOTE: Tesla’s recommendation was not heeded by the Owners of the Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia. They excessively charged/discharged the system. After a few years, they added Megapacks to offset rapid aging of the original system, and added more Megapacks to increase the rating of the expanded system.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-hornsdale-power-reserve-largest-battery-system-in-australia
Battery System Loss: There is about a 20% round-trip loss, from HV grid to 1) step-down transformer, 2) front-end power electronics, 3) into battery, 4) out of battery, 5) back-end power electronics, 6) step-up transformer, to HV grid, i.e., you have to draw about 50 units from the HV grid to deliver about 40 units to the HV grid, because of a-to-z system losses. That gets worse with aging.
Capital Cost: All-in, turnkey capital cost of Tesla, Megapack-based system = 432720/(0.6 x 0.92) x 1000 kWh/MWh x $575/delivered kWh as AC, 2023 pricing = $456 billion.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
Double that amount, if the W/S lull lasts two days.
In addition, the Megapacks must be arranged to provide at least 18030 MW, for the power shortfall, as above calculated
W/S lulls of 5 to 7 days are not uncommon in New England, throughout the year
Dealing with such multi-day lulls will require batteries costing about $2279 billion to $3190 billion, just for New England!
Remember, these battery systems last only about 15 years, and age at about 1.5%/y during that time, if properly operated. Aging increases the loss percent, and reduces the delivered electricity quantity
The recurring replacement cost, about every 15 years, will bankrupt New England
Those capital costs can be reduced by extreme “demand management”, including rolling blackouts and complete blackouts, often practiced in Third World countries.
Imports from nearby states is not an option, as those states face similar wind/solar/battery challenges.
NOTE: Until about 2020, various people claimed future utility-grade battery system costs will be as low as $250/delivered kWh
During 2021, 2022, 2023, Tesla, Megapack-based, battery-system turnkey costs have been increasing to about $575/delivered kWh
.
NOTE: Battery system turnkey capital costs and electricity storage costs likely will be much higher in 2023 and future years, than in 2021 and earlier years, due to: 1) increased inflation rates, 2) increased interest rates, 3) supply chain disruptions, which delay projects and increase costs, 4) increased energy prices, such as of oil, gas, coal, electricity, etc., 5) increased materials prices, such as of tungsten, cobalt, lithium, copper, manganese, etc., 6) increased labor rates.
.
Recharging the Batteries
.
There must be enough W/S capacity, MW, plus favorable wind and solar conditions, to recharge the batteries to about 75% full, in anticipation of a second lull, which could happen a few days after the first lull.
The battery charging occurs, while the battery performs normal battery services, such as:
.
1) Counteracting the W/S-up/down output, on a less-than-minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365,
.
2) Providing electricity during low-W/S periods (such as minor lulls), and during high-W/S periods, when wind turbine rotors are feathered and locked.
.
We assume “3 windy/sunny days after the lull” (fingers crossed) to increase the W/S output from 2970 MW (during the lull) to 30000 MW (immediately after the lull), which is 9000 MW in excess of the assumed 21000 MW demand.
.
W/S electricity available from HV grid for charging is (30000 – 9000) MW x 72 h x 0.35 lifetime CF = 226800 MWh, which loads 0.9 x 226800 = 204120 into the battery, which provides 0.9 x 204120 = 183708 MWh to the HV grid
.
Even with our optimistic assumption of “3 windy/sunny days after the lull”, the MWh fed to HV grid is significantly less than the required 432720 MWh to recharge the battery
.
That means at least 432720/183708 = 2.4 times the 120,000 MW of W/S systems is required to recharge the battery in “3 windy/sunny days”, after a one day lull
.
Most rational people have to come to the conclusion, the wind/solar/battery/EV, etc., route will lead to bankruptcy.
.
A much better approach would be, continue using our God-given abundance of fossil fuels, enjoy the beneficial aspects of increased CO2 (increased flora and fauna), while building more nuclear plants, which reliably produce steady electricity, at reasonable cost/kWh, and have near-zero CO2 emissions for 50 to 80 years
Large batteries are of course not single batteries, but instead thousands of small cells connected in series and parallel. This requires metallic interconnects and many thousands of metallic bonds. Over time the resistance of the bonds increase because of current flow, temperature cycling, and material diffusion. So the internal resistance inside the battery increases with time, causing I^2-R power losses. These can also lead to mismatches in series strings, causing more losses if some strings are forced into reverse bias.
Hot spots develop, which can be catastrophic in these lithium systems.
Somewhat ironically, the same issues affect PV modules as they age because they too are constructed with series and parallel strings of small solar cells. Degradation rates of PV modules are typically similar to this 1.5% per year number, BTW.
The batteries of the Megapacks, in HVAC enclosures, used 24/7/365, degrade at about 1.5% per year
Other parts of the system also degrade, but at slower rates
Revision for more realism
We optimistically assume “3 windy/sunny days immediately after the lull” (fingers crossed) to increase the W/S output from an average of 2970 MW (during the lull) to a 3-day average of 30000 MW (the annual average is 29700 MW), which is 9000 MW in excess of the assumed 21000 MW demand.
.
W/S electricity available from HV grid for charging is 9000 MW x 72 h = 648000 MWh, which loads 0.9 x 648000 = 583200 into the battery, which provides 0.9 x 583200 = 524,880 MWh to the HV grid
.
This analysis ignored these two losses:
Loss for W/S system self-use, about 1 – 2% of annual production, measured at a user meter, times 1.08 for HV and distribution grid losses
Loss from W/S systems to user meter, via HV and distribution grids, about 8% of annual production
.
With our optimistic assumption of “3 windy/sunny days immediately after the lull”, the MWh fed to HV grid is 21% greater than the W/S shortfall of 432,720 MWh
.
However, if losses are applied, and if the assumed “3 windy/sunny days” were less robust, significant additional W/S systems and grid reinforcement/extension will be required; the current 100%+ overbuild likely is not adequate
.
After having the above realities explained to them, most rational people likely would come to the conclusion, the wind/solar/battery/EV, heat pump, etc., route will lead to bankruptcy.
.
A much better approach would be, continue using our God-given, low-cost, abundance of fossil fuels, enjoy the beneficial greening aspects of increased CO2 (increased flora and fauna), while building more standardized nuclear plants, which reliably produce steady electricity, at reasonable cost/kWh, and have near-zero CO2 emissions for 50 to 80 years
Gas Turbine Power Plants instead of Unaffordable Batteries
In 2023, total generation in New England was 101,303 GWh, of which gas 55,586 GWh, imports15,104 GWh, pumping loss 1.679 GWh, total loaded onto HV grid 114,727 GWh.
https://www.iso-ne.com/about/key-stats/resource-mix/
New England has about 13000 MW of gas turbine plants, which produced 55,586 GWh in 2023. They would not be adequate to provide the W/S power shortfall of 21000, demand – 2970, W/S output during lull = 18,030 MW, i.e., at least 10000 MW of additional gas turbine plants would be required (about $20 billion), for a total of 23000 MW, of which some plants, say a total of 1000 MW, would be out of service for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.
If the remaining 22000 MW of plants operated at 83% output, they would produce 22000 MW x 24 h x 0.83 = 438,240 MWh, which is greater than the 432,720 MWh W/S shortfall.
1) The W/S overbuild of 60,000 MW (at least $300 billion, plus 10% for grid reinforcement/expansion) would not be required
2) The 22000 MW of gas turbine plants would cover all lulls, including those lasting 5 to 7 days
3) The gas plants would last at least 40 years
Yes. Put it another way, you have a wind and solar system working with enough storage for a winter calm. The calm comes, you draw on your storage, the wind comes back in time. Now what? You have to have enough output to both recharge the storage and meet the demand.
If you have huge amounts of storage, maybe this can reduce the amount of extra capacity needed. The Royal Society estimated 100 TWh storage for UK peak demand of 45+ GW. That is supposed to be one third of annual demand. So maybe if you have that much storage you can get away with less extra capacity, just use the peaks when production is over demand.
But you still have the difficulty of running the electrolysis plant with intermittent power.
The UK Labour Party, presumably in government on Friday, is proposing 90 GW wind and about 50 GW solar to deliver net zero in generation by 2030. There’s no way that can support 100 TWh of storage. Or even ordinary demand with 45 GW peak. Solar is pretty useless at these latitudes except in May through August. I think if you did the math rigorously it would end up needing wind faceplate of somewhere between 5 and 10 times peak demand. Clearly impossible.
But we are all going to find out together over the next few years. Some of us watching the spectacle from a distance, others living through it.
In the north sea and with 50% efficiency on the storage you will only need to install 2.4 times average demand. Nobody has ever suggested covering peak demand with wind power.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Power-duration-curve-of-onshore-wind-power-plants-offshore-wind-power-plants-and_fig2_285657833
If you need 1 TWyear you have to produce 1.2TWyear. (only store 0.2)
Offshore power duration simplified to a triangle:
A lot of people have DEMANDED the end of fossil fuels.
What, pray tell, would provide for the peaking during peak hours, when solar is getting ready for bed, and wind usually is near zero?
You obviously are not an energy systems engineer/analyst
Listen to the experts, is my advice, not to the wokey-dokey jokesters, who majored in basket weaving, rioting 101, and are just making things up to create chaos..
Lets use the most sophisticated country of the world as an example. If they double their renewable capacity only 8% of the annual generation needs to be stored to provide for peak load. Not the smartest solution, but no problem.
Data from https://energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=day&year=2023&legendItems=0
Load duration curves are total BS, when hour to hour, or 15 minute to 15 minute data is needed to perform proper analysis.
Energy systems analysts, employed by grid operators, use such data when they do their feasibility studies to get meaningful results regarding grid disturbances of increasing levels of W/S systems tied to the grid
Aside from assuming an optimistic average capacity factor for offshore wind which has been as low as 34% in a bad year you fail to account for the fact that the surplus duration curve can only be calculated by looking at the actual demand at least hourly against actual generation. What you then find is that there are larger surpluses from times of low demand, but they only account for a limited number of hours overall. Meanwhile the number of hours where supply is less than demand is rather higher. The duration curve is concave, and better modelled as a quadratic.
This poses an added problem in that it will never be economic to build transmission and electrolysis capacity to handle the largest surpluses because it doesn’t have high enough utilisation. So you need to curtail the excess, and build more capacity than you imagined. It all pushes cost upwards.
See this mouseover chart
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nZM72/1/
No one ever suggested using all excess power in electrolysers. All kinds of storage will be utilised, like in this scenario: https://energy-charts.info/charts/remod_power_profiles/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&source=Stromverwendung&date=2045_15
Pumped storage, power to heat, power to fuel, methanization, batteries, (export) Intraday storage is no problem. I do it myself, heating 2m^3 of water to 80-90 deg C every day during the coldest months.
Pumped storage? In what countries?
Where there are mountains.
I forgot the most important ‘storage’, hydro reservoirs. Hydro alone, reservoirs and pumped, can already take care of 60% of the diurnal load variation in Europe.
You haven’t understood. It is not economic to collect all the surplus output, so there will be curtailment instead. Moreover, the marginal effective contribution from additional capacity starts declining rapidly at higher capacity levels: it adds almost nothing at times of Dunkelflaute and yet only adds low/no value surplus much of the rest of the time.
Yes, there will be some curtailment, there already is today, but no, your second point is not true. When adding more capacity there will be even more hours with low or negative prices so it will be profitable to move more of the consumption to those hours, and use electricity instead of gas for room heating for instance.
Where go you get the energy to build the turbines and electrolizers? Chinese coal?
Using sporadic variable energy to power expensive electrolysers mearly kicks the poor capacity factor issue down the road to the subsequent capex sink hole. A good baseload generator might offer some hope of a predictable return.
Rob,
exactly, Intermittent generation from wind is bad enough just feeding a grid. If you use a ball park figure of 33% availability from wind farms then that inpacts the availability of a hydrogen production facility. That alone must make it a non starter before considering all the problems and hazards in making, compressing and storing then distributing and utilising hydrogen.
Is this 50 megawatts project description based on actual local capacity factor or on nameplate capacity like many other green claims?
In addition, while the difference between the largest and smallest wind turbine generators is small compared to most thermal generation plants, to simply say “10 wind turbines” provides no information.
says Prof. Oliver Opel from the West Coast University of Applied Sciences.
Oliver’s analysis breaks the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics – For a spontaneous process, the entropy of the universe increases.
Every instance of physical change looses energy.
Does this in any way answer my question? It seems like a totally different topic and in any case it seem irrelevant to the article.
Maybe it would have been best, right from the start, to make wind and solar compete for grid time on their merits, and if it was better to use them to make fuels like hydrogen, to make that compete on its merits too. Who knows, we might by now be looking at some seriously competitive uses of wind and solar; trying to give them an advantage actually slows their development.
That’s a mighty big “if”. Where are the huge leaps in productivity going to come from with renewables? Aren’t we pretty close to theoretical maximum already? I can’t see a 10-fold increase in wind turbine productivity.
Best would have been to make sure nothing was connected to the grid that was not dispatchable and synchronous.
Wind and solar industrial estates would then have to provide and pay for their own reliable backup and synchronisation.
This is meaningless drivel. It confuses power and energy. 30MW at what capacity factor – no wind turbine operates at 100% capacity. So does it mean 10 turbines rated at 16MW each. If so there would be many times when the electrolyses capacity of 50MW would be way too small. The problem with averages when using intermittent sources.
3000tons of hydrogen is an energy equivalent. Is it weekly output, monthly output or annual output. It needs a time frame to have meaning. Making an assumption it is 3000tpa of hydrogenated turbines rated at 50MW capacity work at say 25% CF to yield 109.5GWh of electricity to produce 3000t of hydrogen, which delivers 100GWh of electricity. I think not because no hydrogen cycle is going to give a round trip efficiency up around 90%.
I could go to the source and get more useful information but my German language has never been good and I do not trust translators with technical information.
The end is a road to nowhere. Hydrogen electrolysis of intermittent power is more expensive than just using lithium batteries for electricity storage. Hydrogen might find uses in transport but not for home heating. Better to plant trees and manage the resulting forests. In the interim, just keep burning the fossil fuels while converting to fission and hope fusion is within the next century or three.
He is assuming that the installation would produce 100GWh of hydrogen a year, which would require ~166GWh of energy generated at 60% efficiency which is an average of 166/8.76 or ~19MW, or 38% capacity factor for a 50MW windfarm. That’s not an onshore number.
Neumünster is not exactly a promising location for a wind farm.
Or you could build a thermal depolymerisation plant instead. Plastic waste goes in, petrol, diesel and natgas come out. Use the natgas to power the plant, and you have a useful solution to two problems. Unlike this proposal, which introduces more problems than it solves.
How about a WTE incineration plant instead…they are probably cheaper to construct and use well proven technology. Avoids all that sinful “petrol, diesel and natgas” the greens love to hate.
Hossenfelder on hydrogen Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zklo4Z1SqkE
Yes, can’t quite figure out where she stands on the climate scare scale.
Imagine a theoretical nation which has an average daily electricity demand of 40GW that is to be supplied entirely by power generated from wind turbines. Also, in this imaginary country wind conditions are such that 40GW can be generated 65% of the time and 35% of the year no significant power generation is possible due to the absence of wind.
Given the above, electricity demand can be satisfied on 5694 days of the year but how is the imaginary country to manage for the remaining windless 3066 hours of the year? The solution usually advanced is to overbuild wind generated electricity capacity, store the excess power generated on windy days and use this to supply the grid during periods when there is no wind.
The total electrical energy required by my imaginary country = 40GW x 8760 = 350,400 GWhrs.
An installed capacity of 40GW operating for 5694 hours of the year (65%) = 40 x 5694 =227,760 GWhrs.
Overbuild capacity needed to meet a shortfall of (350,400 – 227,760) = 122,640 GWhrs.
Assuming the overbuild can only generate power during the 5694 hours when the wind is blowing, an overbuild capacity of (122,760/5694) = 21.54 GW will be required.
As far as I am aware, no technology exists that can store the amount of electrical energy needed to ensure ‘the lights don’t go out’ on windless days in my imaginary country. Producing hydrogen by electrolysis is not very efficient or economic, even if the hazards of its handling and distribution are ignored.
Typo correction: electricity demand can be satisfied on 5694
dayshours…On what planet can wind turbines come anywhere close to a 65% capacity factor?
But it’s OPM — Other Peoples’ Money!
If Bill Gates wants to buy acres and acres of land and populate it with wind turbines using his own money, more power to him (!). But don’t use my money.
The wind turbines themselves are already a net energy sink. Hey, lets add on an inefficient hydrogen system to it and make it even sinkier!
So the road is not only long, but also expensive.
You just need some get up and go son-
GoSun Finally Pulled It Off! We Now Have a Solar Charger for Our EVs Everywhere We Park – autoevolution
Is it April 1 already?
Another Rube Goldberg perpetual motion invention?
I can’t think of anything that could go wrong with that solar blanket – Oh, wait!
No mention of how long a recharge cycle runs, I wonder why.
Well there was this blurb:
Well, you now have one. Just make sure you’re parked in a sunny area, unfurl the panels, and let them work their magic for the next few days.
“ Just make sure you’re parked in a sunny area …” and pray that it remains sunny “for the next few days”.
PT Barnum would have loved this.
The theory is – wind cannot be relied on to power the grid when needed, but can be relied on to power electrolysis to produce hydrogen when needed.
Have I got that right?
And – the hydrogen will be burnt in gas power stations which the transition to wind were supposed to replace.
Have I got that right too?
Is it just me or… anybody else thinking ‘kafkaesque’?
You can make hydrogen in a one hour long high school chemistry session with common lab supplies…but a functional Lithium Ion battery NO. This implies that something better than hydrogen for electricity storage has already been invented.
I seem to recall we have a potable water shortage. So are we going to make that worse by dissociating water to make hydrogen?
Story tip:
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/three-out-four-ev-charging-developers-say-they-cant-get-enough-electricity
Who could have seen this coming?
Well this is certainly “green”.
I do not understand why we are still talking about gaseous hydrogen. It cannot be stored nor pipelined, and the energy density is low’ to say nothing of the expense of electrolysis and the water treatment so the anodes do not cake up with minerals. Just stop…
The answer is clearly fossil fuel and nuclear power. We know how to build them, we know how much it will cost, we know how much energy we can expect 24/7 and we can power them up or down.
Long and expensive and no guarantee of reliability. This sounds a lot like wind and solar.
The article statues some striking numbers if you bother to look at them. 3000 Metric tons of H2 is 360,000,000 MJ of energy (Lower Heating Value) which is exactly the energy input in MJ of energy. 100% energy efficiency based on LHV is thermodynamically impossible, as is 100% efficiency based on HHV which is 15% higher than LHV. So, this article is just handwaving. Actual electrolysis is only 70% thermally efficient on an HHV basis and about 60% on a LHV basis. And that doesn’t include compression, distribution, storage and use losses. What a waste of a primary energy source.
German Wind Power capacity factor is about 20%
5MW x 0.2 x 24×365 = 8,7600MWh per year (1)
H2 output = 50MW equivalent.
H2 production efficiency is about 75% to 80 %. Take 80%
Energy input -= 50MW / 80% = 62.5 MW
62.5 MW x 24 x 365 = 547,500 MWh (2)
Divide (1) by (2)
547,500 . 8,7600 = 62.5 wind turbines requires
63 10MW wind turbines plus energy storage are required to produce enough energy to produce a H2 at a rate equivalent to 50MW per hour.