Wind-to-Hydrogen
European Wind Developers Have Announced Plans to Install 582 MW of Electrolyzers for Green Hydrogen Production
In the past year, there have been a number of large scale announcements of wind project developers integrating electrolyzers into their project plans. A summary of recent announcements in Figure 1 below illustrate the scale of these announcements, with seven projects planning to install a total of 582 MW of electrolyzers.
There are several forces driving this emerging technology, principally changing grid economics in a future with a high proportion of variable renewable energy, interest in decarbonizing heat energy, and historically high prices for natural gas.
Wind project developers are concerned about optimizing project revenues when facing increasing curtailment, more frequent negative pricing and an increasing proportion of low price power regimes. The continued expansion of variable renewable energy on European grids will further deflate power prices and increase curtailment, negatively impacting wind power economics. Developers are increasingly looking for ways to mitigate economic risks associated with downward price trends, to monetize stranded and low price electrons. This Velerity Brief looks at four recently announced and illustrative projects:
Hyport Oostende
Ørsted Hornsea Two Gigastack Project
Dolphyn
Lhyfe Bouin