Solar Power and Hydrogen Energy Storage

[PolicySpy]

The first link for solar-power-to-hydrogen proposes concentrated sunlight on a solar panel as a method:

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/38553.pdf

I though that thermal-water-splitting for solar-power-to-hydrogen was most promising but it doesn't seem to be working:

https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f9/solar_thermo_h2.pdf

This next development reaches 24.4% efficiency for concentrated solar-power-to-hydrogen:

https://phys.org/news/2015-12-solar-powered-hydrogen-production-efficiency.html

Then this development reaches 30% efficiency for concentrated solar-power-to-hydrogen:

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13237


Here is a system that will add hydrogen-energy-storage infrastructure as a last step:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/energy/frances-engie-says-hydrogen-has-massive-longterm-potential-for-power-storage-20170525-gwcqse.html


Now if solar power can be converted to hydrogen then the solar powerplants can be built anywhere that has a source of water and the hydrogen can be shipped.

At this point there are other developments that say that hydrogen might be easier to ship if combined with ammonia.


Now back to the beginning points and we are not looking for concentrated solar power because that is thermal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

But we are looking for concentrator photovoltaics because that is light:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrator_photovoltaics

And the concentrator photovoltaics work best in sunbelt regions.


One question is, can the concentrator-photovoltaics-to-electrolysis process reach the same efficiency with sea water ?

[Arindam Banerjee]

www.htnresearch.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdM6UDPauU
IFE - 5 Hydrogen Transmission Network

[PolicySpy]

See, the idea is to build solar powerplants in remote locations that have low cost land use, in locations that don't have energy demand, in locations that don't have trees, but in locations that do have water.

Then the solar power is used to make hydrogen which can be shipped .

Furthermore, shipment of hydrogen is easier in the form of ammonia . To get the hydrogen back out of the ammonia requires mostly high temperature.

https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/nh3_paper.pdf

In the above paper, read about ammonia as a hydrogen carrier and ignore the rest of the paper . Or just read the last paragraph of the paper .

But there's another point. Getting hydrogen out of ammonia requires high temperature . But stationary solid-oxide fuel-cells themselves run at high temperature . So a portion of the hydrogen can be run through a solid-oxide fuel-cell to put electricity into the power-grid and then the heat from the solid-oxide fuel-cell can reform the hydrogen out of the ammonia . This process can be done at every hydrogen fueling station such that the hydrogen fueling station only requires the delivery of ammonia.

Since the integrated oil companies are not making ammonia from solar power and sending the ammonia to hydrogen fueling stations, then the government should do it . But the government is not doing it either .

[PolicySpy]

Here are some more links:

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/may/19/how-australia-can-use-hydrogen-to-export-its-solar-power-around-the-world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell_vehicle

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fuelcell.shtml

http://www.fchea.org/stationary/

Of course reforming hydrogen from natural-gas produces carbon while reforming hydrogen from ammonia doesn't produce carbon. And making ammonia from solar power and water doesn't produce carbon.