Netherlands
Multiperiod Modeling and Optimization of Hydrogen-Based Dense Energy Carrier Supply Chains
Feb 2024
Publication
The production of hydrogen-based dense energy carriers (DECs) has been proposed as a combined solution for the storage and dispatch of power generated through intermittent renewables. Frameworks that model and optimize the production storage and dispatch of generated energy are important for data-driven decision making in the energy systems space. The proposed multiperiod framework considers the evolution of technology costs under different levels of promotion through research and targeted policies using the year 2021 as a baseline. Furthermore carbon credits are included as proposed by the 45Q tax amendment for the capture sequestration and utilization of carbon. The implementation of the mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) framework is illustrated through computational case studies to meet set hydrogen demands. The trade-offs between different technology pathways and contributions to system expenditure are elucidated and promising configurations and technology niches are identified. It is found that while carbon credits can subsidize carbon capture utilization and sequestration (CCUS) pathways substantial reductions in the cost of novel processes are needed to compete with extant technology pathways. Further research and policy push can reduce the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) by upwards of 2 USD/kg.
Review on Ammonia as a Potential Fuel: From Synthesis to Economics
Feb 2021
Publication
Ammonia a molecule that is gaining more interest as a fueling vector has been considered as a candidate to power transport produce energy and support heating applications for decades. However the particular characteristics of the molecule always made it a chemical with low if any benefit once compared to conventional fossil fuels. Still the current need to decarbonize our economy makes the search of new methods crucial to use chemicals such as ammonia that can be produced and employed without incurring in the emission of carbon oxides. Therefore current efforts in this field are leading scientists industries and governments to seriously invest efforts in the development of holistic solutions capable of making ammonia a viable fuel for the transition toward a clean future. On that basis this review has approached the subject gathering inputs from scientists actively working on the topic. The review starts from the importance of ammonia as an energy vector moving through all of the steps in the production distribution utilization safety legal considerations and economic aspects of the use of such a molecule to support the future energy mix. Fundamentals of combustion and practical cases for the recovery of energy of ammonia are also addressed thus providing a complete view of what potentially could become a vector of crucial importance to the mitigation of carbon emissions. Different from other works this review seeks to provide a holistic perspective of ammonia as a chemical that presents benefits and constraints for storing energy from sustainable sources. State-of-the-art knowledge provided by academics actively engaged with the topic at various fronts also enables a clear vision of the progress in each of the branches of ammonia as an energy carrier. Further the fundamental boundaries of the use of the molecule are expanded to real technical issues for all potential technologies capable of using it for energy purposes legal barriers that will be faced to achieve its deployment safety and environmental considerations that impose a critical aspect for acceptance and wellbeing and economic implications for the use of ammonia across all aspects approached for the production and implementation of this chemical as a fueling source. Herein this work sets the principles research practicalities and future views of a transition toward a future where ammonia will be a major energy player.
Selection Criteria and Ranking for Sustainable Hydrogen Production Options
Aug 2022
Publication
This paper aims to holistically study hydrogen production options essential for a sustainable and carbon-free future. This study also outlines the benefits and challenges of hydrogen production methods to provide sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels by meeting the global energy demand and net-zero targets. In this study sixteen hydrogen production methods are selected for sustainability investigation based on seven different criteria. The criteria selected in the comparative evaluation cover various dimensions of hydrogen production in terms of economic technical environmental and thermodynamic aspects for better sustainability. The current study results show that steam methane reforming with carbon capture could provide sustainable hydrogen in the near future while the other technologies’ maturity levels increase and the costs decrease. In the medium- and long-terms photonic and thermal-based hydrogen production methods can be the key to sustainable hydrogen production.
Design of Gravimetric Primary Standards for Field-testing of Hydrogen Refuelling Stations
Apr 2020
Publication
The Federal Institute of Metrology METAS developed a Hydrogen Field Test Standard (HFTS) that can be used for field verification and calibration of hydrogen refuelling stations. The testing method is based on the gravimetric principle. The experimental design of the HFTS as well as the description of the method are presented here.
Benchmark of J55 and X56 Steels on Cracking and Corrosion Effects Under Hydrogen Salt Cavern Boundary Conditions
Feb 2024
Publication
Salt caverns have great potential to store relevant amounts of hydrogen as part of the energy transition. However the durability and suitability of commonly used steels for piping in hydrogen salt caverns is still under research. In this work aging effects focusing on corrosion and cracking patterns of casing steel API 5CT J55 and “H2ready” pipeline steel API 5L X56 were investigated with scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy after accelerated stress tests with pressure/temperature cycling under hydrogen salt cavern-like conditions. Compared to dry conditions significant more corrosion by presence of salt ions was detected. However compared to X56 only for J55 an intensification of corrosion and cracking at the surface due to hydrogen atmosphere was revealed. Pronounced surface cracks were observed for J55 over the entire samples. Overall the results strongly suggest that X56 is more resistant than J55 under the conditions of a hydrogen salt cavern.
Techno-economic Analysis of Developing an Underground Hydrogen Storage Facility in Depleted Gas Field: A Dutch Case Study
Apr 2023
Publication
Underground hydrogen storage will be an essential part of the future hydrogen infrastructure to provide flexibility and security of supply. Storage in porous reservoirs should complement storage in salt caverns to be able to meet the projected high levels of required storage capacities. To assess its techno-economic feasibility a case study of hydrogen storage in a depleted gas field in the Netherlands is developed. Subsurface modelling is performed and various surface facility design concepts are investigated to calculate the levelized cost of hydrogen storage (LCOHS). Our base case with hydrogen as cushion gas results in an LCOHS of 0.79 EUR/kg (range of 0.58–1.04 EUR/kg). Increasing the number of full-cycle equivalents from 1 to 6 lowers the storage cost to 0.25 EUR/kg. The investment cost of the cushion gas represents 76% of the total cost. With nitrogen as cushion gas LCOHS is reduced to 0.49 EUR/kg (range of 0.42–0.56 EUR/kg).
AMHYCO Project - Advances in H2/CO Combustion, Recombination and Containment Modelling
Sep 2023
Publication
During a severe accident in a nuclear power plant one of the potential threats to the containment is the occurrence of energetic combustion events. In modern plants Severe Accident Management Guidelines (SAMG) as well as dedicated mitigation hardware are in place to minimize/mitigate this combustion risk and thus avoid the release of radioactive material into the environment. Advancements in SAMGs are in the focus of AMHYCO an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project officially launched on October 1st 2020. The project consortium consists of 12 organizations (from six European countries and one from Canada) and is coordinated by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). The progress made in the first two years of the AMHYCO project is here presented. A comprehensive bibliographic review has been conducted providing a common foundation to build the knowledge gained during the project. After an extensive set of accident transients simulated both for phases occurring inside and outside the reactor pressure vessel a set of challenging sequences from the combustion risk perspective for different power plant types were identified. At the same time three generic containment models for the three considered reactor designs have been created to provide the full containment analysis simulations with lumped parameter models 3-dimensional containment codes and CFD codes. In order to further consolidate the model base combustion experiments and performance tests on passive auto-catalytic recombiners under explosion prone H2/CO atmospheres were performed at CNRS (France) and FZJ (Germany). Finally it is worth saying that the experimental data and engineering models generated from the AMHYCO project are useful for other industries outside the nuclear one.
Lessons Learned from Large Scale Hydrogen Production Project
Sep 2023
Publication
In August 2022 Shell started construction of Holland Hydrogen I (HH I) a 200 MW electrolyser plant in the port of Rotterdam’s industrial zone on Maasvlakte II in the Netherlands. HH I will produce up to 60000 kg of renewable hydrogen per day. The development and demonstration of a safe layout and plant design had been challenging due to ambitious HH I project premises many technical novelties common uncertainties in hydrogen leak effect prediction a lack of large-scale water electrolyzer operating history and limited standardization in this industry sector. This paper provides an industry perspective of the major challenges in commercial electrolyzer plant HSSE risk assessment and risk mitigation work processes required to develop and demonstrate a safe design and it describes lessons learned in this area during the HH I project. Furthermore the paper lists major common gaps in relevant knowledge engineering tools standards and OEM deliverables that need closure to enable future commercial electrolyzer plant projects to develop an economically viable and plant design and layout more efficiently and cost-effectively.
Simulation of DDT in Obstructed Channels: Wavy Channels vs. Fence-type Obstacles
Sep 2023
Publication
The capabilities of an OpenFOAM solver to reproduce the transition of stoichiometric H2-air mixtures to detonation in obstructed 2-D channels were tested. The process is challenging numerically as it involves the ignition of a flame kernel its subsequent propagation and acceleration interaction with obstacles formation of shock waves ahead and detonation onset (DO). Two different obstacle configurations were considered in 10-mm high × 1-m long channels: (i) wavy walls (WW) that mimic the behavior of fencetype obstacles but prevent abrupt area changes. In this case flame acceleration (FA) is strongly affected by shock-flame interactions and DO often results from the compression of the gas present between the accelerating flame front and a converging section of the channel. (ii) Fence-type (FT) obstacles. In this case FA is driven by the increase in flame surface area as a result of the interaction of the flame front with the unburned gas flow field ahead particularly downstream of obstacles; shock-flame interactions play a role at the later stages of FA and DO takes place upon reflection of precursor shocks from obstacles. The effect of initial pressure p0 = 25 50 and 100 kPa at constant blockage ratio (BR = 0.6) was investigated and compared for both configurations. Results show that for the same initial pressure (p0 = 50 kPa) the obstacle configurations could lead to different final propagation regimes: a quasi-detonation for WW and a choked-flame for FT due to the increased losses for the latter. At p0 = 25 kPa however while both configurations result in choked flames WW seem to exhibit larger velocity deficits than FT due to longer flame-precursor shock distances during quasi-steady propagation and to the increased presence of unburnt mixture downstream of the tip of the flame that homogeneously explodes providing additional support to the propagation of the flame.
A Thermodynamically Consistent Methodology to Develop Predictive Simplified Kinetics for Detonation Simulations
Sep 2023
Publication
The number of species and elementary reactions needed for describing the oxidation of fuels increases with the size of the molecule and in turn the complexity of detailed mechanisms. Although the kinetics for conventional fuels (H2 CH4 C3H8...) are somewhat well-established chemical integration in detonation applications remains a major challenge. Significant efforts have been made to develop reduction techniques that aim to keep the predictive capabilities of detailed mechanisms intact while minimizing the number of species and reactions required. However as their starting point of development is based on homogeneous reactors or ZND profiles reduced mechanisms comprising a few species and reactions are not predictive. The methodology presented here relies on defining virtual chemical species such that the thermodynamic equilibrium of the ZND structure is properly recovered thereby circumventing the need to account for minor intermediate species. A classical asymptotic expression relating the ignition delay time with the reaction rate constant is then used to fit the Arrhenius coefficients targeting computations carried out with detailed kinetics. The methodology was extended to develop a three-step mechanism in which the Arrhenius coefficients were optimized to accurately reproduce the one-dimensional laminar ZND structure and the D−κ curves for slightly-curved quasi-steady detonation waves. Two-dimensional simulations performed with the three-step mechanism successfully reproduce the spectrum of length scales present in soot foils computed with detailed kinetics (i.e. cell regularity and size). Results attest for the robustness of the proposed methodology/approximation and its flexibility to be adapted to different configurations.
Impact on Canadian Residential End Use Appliances with the Introduction of Hydrogen into the Natural Gas Stream - An Application
Sep 2023
Publication
Canada’s commitment to be net-zero by 2050 combined with ATCO’s own Environmental Social and Governance goals has led ATCO to pursue hydrogen blending within the existing natural gas system to reduce CO2 emissions while continuing to provide safe reliable energy service to customers. Utilization of hydrogen in the distribution system is the least-cost alternative for decarbonizing the heating loads in jurisdictions like Alberta where harsh winter climates are encountered and low-carbon hydrogen production can be abundant. ATCO’s own Fort Saskatchewan Hydrogen Blending Project began blending 5% hydrogen by volume to over 2100 customers in the Fall of 2022 and plans to increase the blend rates to 20% hydrogen in 2023. Prior to blending ATCO worked together with DNV to examine the impact of hydrogen blended natural gas to twelve Canadian appliances: range/stove oven garage heater high and medium efficiency furnaces conventional and on demand hot water heaters barbeque clothes dryer radiant heater and two gas fireplaces. The tests were performed not only within the planned blend rates of 0-20% hydrogen but also to higher percentages to determine how much hydrogen can be blended into a system before appliance retrofits would be required. The testing was designed to get insights on safety-related combustion issues such as flash-back burner overheating flame detection and other performance parameters such as emissions and burner power. The experimental results indicate that the radiant heater is the most sensitive appliance for flashback observed at 30 vol% hydrogen in natural gas. At 50% hydrogen the range and the radiant burner of the barbeque tested were found to be sensitive to flashback. All other 9 appliances were found to be robust for flashback with no other short-term issues observed. This paper will detail the findings of ATCO and DNV’s appliance testing program including results on failure mechanisms and sensitivities for each appliance.
Modelling of Hydrogen Dispersion with Effects
Sep 2023
Publication
The paper shows the latest developments of Gexcon’s consequence modelling software EFFECTS with validation based on hydrogen experimental data for different storage conditions and scenarios including liquid hydrogen two-phase jet releases. The effect of atmospheric turbulence on the dispersion and potential worst-case scenarios of hydrogen which are very different from heavy gas releases are discussed. Beside validation for gaseous hydrogen releases a validation study for pressurised liquid hydrogen jet releases including a sensitivity analysis is performed and the results are compared with experimental data.
No more items...