By Paul Homewood
Returning to my post on this story the other day, you will recall that the Royal Society reckon we will need 100 TWh of storage in 2050, to cover for variations in wind and solar power.
Obviously this rules out any significant contribution from batteries and there are only so many pumped storage systems we can build. So unless we go hell for leather and build lots of nuclear plants, that leaves just hydrogen as a possible solution.
But producing hydrogen via electrolysis, and then burning it in a generator, would mean we would need about 500 TWh input into the process. As you may recall from an earlier analysis, electrolysers typically work at about 52% efficiency, and the thermal generator at 40%. So you need 5 units of power input for every unit generated.
That would mean you would need about 130 GW of offshore wind capacity, dedicated just for hydrogen production. This is a huge amount, nearly ten times the UK’s current capacity.
In theory the surplus of wind power at times during the year should offset the times of deficit, on an hour-to-hour or day-to-day basis. But, depending on just how much wind capacity you have, that won’t be able to supply enough to cover the long periods of Dunkelflaute, when winds are low for weeks on end.
Indeed, given the 5 to 1 factor, you would not even have enough surplus during the year to meet those day-to-day deficits.
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January 24, 2024 at 03:54AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 