GenComm partner NUIG participates at the ECOS conference
One of the GenComm’s outputs is to establish an online tool that shows the potential of hydrogen production across Northwest Europe. NUIG investigate and analyse multiple scenarios of hydrogen demand. Hydrogen can be supplied as zero emission fuel for transportation and heating.
In terms of heating demand, a study on renewable hydrogen supply to partially substitute natural gas in Ireland has been completed. I published this work at the 32nd International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems (ECOS) from 23rd to 28th June 2019 in Wroclaw, Poland.
The study focuses on the hydrogen production that is located at each wind farm in Ireland. In the future, it is essential to evaluate a hydrogen production hub as well as integration with any other renewable source to escalate production capacity and reduce its operational cost.
The ECOS conference showed multiple hydrogen studies with a wide-range of production methods and application. Moreover, ECOS provided valuable lectures from various keynote speakers. Professor George Tsatsaronis, from the Institute for Energy Engineering at Technical University of Berlin in Germany, mentioned one instrument that can push carbon-free fuel like hydrogen to come into the energy system by having the right carbon price. Meanwhile Dr. Alicia Valero, from the Research Centre for Energy Resources and Consumption (CIRCE - Institute) at University of Zaragoza in Spain, questioned the sustainability of energy storage technology like the battery, due to the higher content of rare material, the lower potential of recyclability there is. This opens the opportunity of hydrogen even more to be a sustainable energy storage. Additionally, to achieve a larger share of renewables, Prof. Henrik Lund, from Department of Planning at Aalborg University in Denmark, emphasised the importance of renewables supply for district heating, which also can potentially be sourced from renewable hydrogen.