It’s definitely not worth using full price electricity to split hydrogen out of water, if your intention is to turn that hydrogen back into electricity through some method (fuel cell, internal combustion engine, steam turbine, whatever).
But if the electricity was otherwise going to be discarded (as is currently the case practically daily in SA), that cost/benefit gets crazy.
Let’s flip that around and pretend it’s only 30% efficient, because we need to turn it back into electricity afterwards, and rather than quibble about exact efficiencies/losses, I’d rather exaggerate the loss for a theoretical worst case.
That’s still X amount of electricity saved for later use, that would have otherwise have just been switched off.
And that’s especially useful when your primary source is not available (ie, solar in the middle of the night).
Well, for storing it for the night, I typically hear that battery or saline storage is much more efficient (something like 60% efficiency for the whole cycle of storing and retrieving).
So, unless it’s much more expensive to build this battery/saline storage, it seems like it’d only be economical to blow it on hydrogen, if you’ve got your storage filled up for the night + somewhat of a buffer.
I guess, this theory might be void, if companies are willing to pay a lot of money for hydrogen. Some industries do strictly need hydrogen for chemical processes, so I guess, those would pay…
I think you’re right, hydrogen is ludicrous, and bang for buck, some other tech will win out for time shifting the power, probably pumped hydro.
edit to add: Hydrogen is ludicrous in the primary context of a battery.
There’s other potential uses such as making steel, making ammonia/fertilizer etc that could change the equation again. Hell, you might even find it desirable to make it HERE and transport it THERE as a battery, but again, the maths are currently wrong.
It’s definitely not worth using full price electricity to split hydrogen out of water, if your intention is to turn that hydrogen back into electricity through some method (fuel cell, internal combustion engine, steam turbine, whatever).
But if the electricity was otherwise going to be discarded (as is currently the case practically daily in SA), that cost/benefit gets crazy.
Wikipedia has 3 links indicating around 70% efficiency on the electrolysis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production#Electrolysis_of_water_–_green,_pink_or_yellow
Let’s flip that around and pretend it’s only 30% efficient, because we need to turn it back into electricity afterwards, and rather than quibble about exact efficiencies/losses, I’d rather exaggerate the loss for a theoretical worst case.
That’s still X amount of electricity saved for later use, that would have otherwise have just been switched off.
And that’s especially useful when your primary source is not available (ie, solar in the middle of the night).
Well, for storing it for the night, I typically hear that battery or saline storage is much more efficient (something like 60% efficiency for the whole cycle of storing and retrieving).
So, unless it’s much more expensive to build this battery/saline storage, it seems like it’d only be economical to blow it on hydrogen, if you’ve got your storage filled up for the night + somewhat of a buffer.
I guess, this theory might be void, if companies are willing to pay a lot of money for hydrogen. Some industries do strictly need hydrogen for chemical processes, so I guess, those would pay…
I think you’re right, hydrogen is ludicrous, and bang for buck, some other tech will win out for time shifting the power, probably pumped hydro.
edit to add: Hydrogen is ludicrous in the primary context of a battery. There’s other potential uses such as making steel, making ammonia/fertilizer etc that could change the equation again. Hell, you might even find it desirable to make it HERE and transport it THERE as a battery, but again, the maths are currently wrong.