Optimal operation of a wind-electrolytic hydrogen storage system in the electricity/hydrogen markets

Abstract

Wind power, the most promising renewable energy source in the world, plays an important role in the electricity markets. Wind power curtailment cannot be avoided in some countries due to its output has a special feature of randomness and volatility. Since the excess wind power being converted into hydrogen and sold to the hydrogen market will be the future trend. This study proposes a wind-electrolytic hydrogen storage system to participate in the electricity/hydrogen markets for selling electricity and hydrogen, which can help to improve the benefits of wind power in the electricity markets and addree the wind power curtailment effectively. With considering the uncertainties of wind power outputs and electricity prices, the optimal operation strategy is proposed with the objective of maximizing profits. The scenario-based stochastic method is adopted to describe the uncertainties, and the financial risk is evaluated using conditional value-at-risk. The operational problem of the proposed system is formulated into a mixed-integer linear programming model. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed operational strategy is validated by a case study. The results show that the expected revenue increases with the increase of the hydrogen selling price, indicating that investors can obtain profits by converting electricity into hydrogen. The optimal expected revenue increases by 33.42% when hydrogen price increases from 1.2 DKK/kWh to 1.8 DKK/kWh and the risk factor is equal to 0. Based on the analysis of the results, the importance of hydrogen can be proven.