Optimizing the Operation of an Electrolyzer with Hydrogen Storage Using Two Different Methods: A Trade-Off Between Simplicity and Precision in Minimizing Hydrogen Production Costs Using Day-Ahead Market Prices

Lukas Saars (), Marius Madsen and Jörg Meyer
Additional contact information
Lukas Saars: SWK E 2 —Institute for Energy Technology and Energy Management, Hochschule Niederrhein (University of Applied Sciences), 47805 Krefeld, Germany
Marius Madsen: SWK E 2 —Institute for Energy Technology and Energy Management, Hochschule Niederrhein (University of Applied Sciences), 47805 Krefeld, Germany
Jörg Meyer: SWK E 2 —Institute for Energy Technology and Energy Management, Hochschule Niederrhein (University of Applied Sciences), 47805 Krefeld, Germany

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 22, 1-20

Abstract: The potential for hydrogen is high in industrial processes that are difficult to electrify. Many companies are asking themselves at what cost they can produce hydrogen using water electrolysis with hydrogen storage. This article presents a user-friendly and less computationally intensive method (called method 1 in the following) for determining the minimum of the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) by optimizing the combination of electrolyzer size and hydrogen storage size and their operation, depending on electricity prices on the day-ahead market. Method 1 is validated by comparing it with a more accurate and complex method (called method 2 in the following). The methods are applied to the example of a medium-sized industrial company in the mechanical engineering sector with a total natural gas demand of 8 GWh per year. The optimized LCOH of the analyzed company in method 1 is 5.00 €/kg. This is only slightly higher than in method 2 (4.97 €/kg). The article shows that a very good estimate of the LCOH can be made with the user-friendly and less computationally intensive method 1. For further validation of the methods, they were applied to other companies and the results are presented below.

Keywords: optimization methods; hydrogen; electrolyzer; hydrogen storage; companies; hydrogen production costs; electricity market; LCOH (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/22/5546/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/22/5546/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:22:p:5546-:d:1515305

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().