IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v13y2022i1d10.1038_s41467-022-29520-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reversible Power-to-Gas systems for energy conversion and storage

Author

Listed:
  • Gunther Glenk

    (University of Mannheim, MIT CEEPR, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Stefan Reichelstein

    (Stanford University, Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW))

Abstract

In the transition to decarbonized energy systems, Power-to-Gas (PtG) processes have the potential to connect the existing markets for electricity and hydrogen. Specifically, reversible PtG systems can convert electricity to hydrogen at times of ample power supply, yet they can also operate in the reverse direction to deliver electricity during times when power is relatively scarce. Here we develop a model for determining when reversible PtG systems are economically viable. We apply the model to the current market environment in both Germany and Texas and find that the reversibility feature of unitized regenerative fuel cells (solid oxide) makes them already cost-competitive at current hydrogen prices, provided the fluctuations in electricity prices are as pronounced as currently observed in Texas. We further project that, due to their inherent flexibility, reversible PtG systems would remain economically viable at substantially lower hydrogen prices in the future, provided recent technological trends continue over the coming decade.

Suggested Citation

  • Gunther Glenk & Stefan Reichelstein, 2022. "Reversible Power-to-Gas systems for energy conversion and storage," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-29520-0
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29520-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29520-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-022-29520-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glenk, Gunther & Meier, Rebecca & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2021. "Clean Energy Technologies: Dynamics of Cost and Price," Research Papers 3958, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    2. Maryam Arbabzadeh & Ramteen Sioshansi & Jeremiah X. Johnson & Gregory A. Keoleian, 2019. "Author Correction: The role of energy storage in deep decarbonization of electricity production," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-1, December.
    3. Graves, Christopher & Ebbesen, Sune D. & Mogensen, Mogens & Lackner, Klaus S., 2011. "Sustainable hydrocarbon fuels by recycling CO2 and H2O with renewable or nuclear energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Detlef P. van Vuuren & Elke Stehfest & David E. H. J. Gernaat & Maarten Berg & David L. Bijl & Harmen Sytze Boer & Vassilis Daioglou & Jonathan C. Doelman & Oreane Y. Edelenbosch & Mathijs Harmsen & A, 2018. "Alternative pathways to the 1.5 °C target reduce the need for negative emission technologies," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(5), pages 391-397, May.
    5. David Wozabal & Christoph Graf & David Hirschmann, 2016. "The effect of intermittent renewables on the electricity price variance," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 38(3), pages 687-709, July.
    6. Gunther Glenk & Stefan Reichelstein, 2019. "Publisher Correction: Economics of converting renewable power to hydrogen," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 4(4), pages 347-347, April.
    7. Buttler, Alexander & Spliethoff, Hartmut, 2018. "Current status of water electrolysis for energy storage, grid balancing and sector coupling via power-to-gas and power-to-liquids: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 2440-2454.
    8. William A. Braff & Joshua M. Mueller & Jessika E. Trancik, 2016. "Value of storage technologies for wind and solar energy," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(10), pages 964-969, October.
    9. Falko Ueckerdt & Christian Bauer & Alois Dirnaichner & Jordan Everall & Romain Sacchi & Gunnar Luderer, 2021. "Potential and risks of hydrogen-based e-fuels in climate change mitigation," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(5), pages 384-393, May.
    10. Maryam Arbabzadeh & Ramteen Sioshansi & Jeremiah X. Johnson & Gregory A. Keoleian, 2019. "The role of energy storage in deep decarbonization of electricity production," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    11. Ketterer, Janina C., 2014. "The impact of wind power generation on the electricity price in Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 270-280.
    12. Paraschiv, Florentina & Erni, David & Pietsch, Ralf, 2014. "The impact of renewable energies on EEX day-ahead electricity prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 196-210.
    13. Glenk, Gunther & Meier, Rebecca & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2021. "Cost dynamics of clean energy technologies," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-054, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    14. Greg H. Rau & Heather D. Willauer & Zhiyong Jason Ren, 2018. "The global potential for converting renewable electricity to negative-CO2-emissions hydrogen," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(7), pages 621-625, July.
    15. Nestor A. Sepulveda & Jesse D. Jenkins & Aurora Edington & Dharik S. Mallapragada & Richard K. Lester, 2021. "The design space for long-duration energy storage in decarbonized power systems," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 6(5), pages 506-516, May.
    16. Stephen Comello & Stefan Reichelstein, 2019. "The emergence of cost effective battery storage," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-9, December.
    17. Wei, Max & Smith, Sarah J. & Sohn, Michael D., 2017. "Experience curve development and cost reduction disaggregation for fuel cell markets in Japan and the US," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 346-357.
    18. Jon Olauson & Mohd Nasir Ayob & Mikael Bergkvist & Nicole Carpman & Valeria Castellucci & Anders Goude & David Lingfors & Rafael Waters & Joakim Widén, 2016. "Net load variability in Nordic countries with a highly or fully renewable power system," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 1(12), pages 1-8, December.
    19. Sonja Renssen, 2020. "The hydrogen solution?," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 10(9), pages 799-801, September.
    20. Gunther Glenk & Stefan Reichelstein, 2020. "Synergistic Value in Vertically Integrated Power‐to‐Gas Energy Systems," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(3), pages 526-546, March.
    21. Gunther Glenk & Stefan Reichelstein, 2019. "Economics of converting renewable power to hydrogen," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 4(3), pages 216-222, March.
    22. A. Gürhan Kök & Kevin Shang & Şafak Yücel, 2018. "Impact of Electricity Pricing Policies on Renewable Energy Investments and Carbon Emissions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 131-148, January.
    23. Davis, Steven J & Lewis, Nathan S. & Shaner, Matthew & Aggarwal, Sonia & Arent, Doug & Azevedo, Inês & Benson, Sally & Bradley, Thomas & Brouwer, Jack & Chiang, Yet-Ming & Clack, Christopher T.M. & Co, 2018. "Net-Zero Emissions Energy Systems," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt7qv6q35r, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Laura Zecchi & Giulia Sandrini & Marco Gadola & Daniel Chindamo, 2022. "Modeling of a Hybrid Fuel Cell Powertrain with Power Split Logic for Onboard Energy Management Using a Longitudinal Dynamics Simulation Tool," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-18, August.
    2. Guerra, K. & Gutiérrez-Alvarez, R. & Guerra, Omar J. & Haro, P., 2023. "Opportunities for low-carbon generation and storage technologies to decarbonise the future power system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 336(C).
    3. Glenk, Gunther & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2022. "The economic dynamics of competing power generation sources," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    4. Calise, Francesco & Cappiello, Francesco Liberato & Cimmino, Luca & Dentice d’Accadia, Massimo & Vicidomini, Maria, 2023. "Dynamic simulation and thermoeconomic analysis of a power to gas system," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    5. Okunlola, Ayodeji & Davis, Matthew & Kumar, Amit, 2023. "Assessing the cost competitiveness of electrolytic hydrogen production from small modular nuclear reactor-based power plants: A price-following perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 346(C).
    6. Hren, Robert & Vujanović, Annamaria & Van Fan, Yee & Klemeš, Jiří Jaromír & Krajnc, Damjan & Čuček, Lidija, 2023. "Hydrogen production, storage and transport for renewable energy and chemicals: An environmental footprint assessment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    7. Sun, Yi & Qian, Tang & Zhu, Jingdong & Zheng, Nan & Han, Yu & Xiao, Gang & Ni, Meng & Xu, Haoran, 2023. "Dynamic simulation of a reversible solid oxide cell system for efficient H2 production and power generation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PA).
    8. Amladi, Amogh & Venkataraman, Vikrant & Woudstra, Theo & Aravind, P.V., 2024. "Hot air recirculation enlarges efficient operating window of reversible solid oxide cell systems: A thermodynamic study of energy storage using ammonia," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 355(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ma, Huan & Sun, Qinghan & Chen, Lei & Chen, Qun & Zhao, Tian & He, Kelun & Xu, Fei & Min, Yong & Wang, Shunjiang & Zhou, Guiping, 2023. "Cogeneration transition for energy system decarbonization: From basic to flexible and complementary multi-energy sources," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    2. Dan Tong & David J. Farnham & Lei Duan & Qiang Zhang & Nathan S. Lewis & Ken Caldeira & Steven J. Davis, 2021. "Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind power worldwide," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Glenk, Gunther & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2021. "Intermittent versus dispatchable power sources: An integrated competitive assessment," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-065, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    4. Blanco, Herib & Leaver, Jonathan & Dodds, Paul E. & Dickinson, Robert & García-Gusano, Diego & Iribarren, Diego & Lind, Arne & Wang, Changlong & Danebergs, Janis & Baumann, Martin, 2022. "A taxonomy of models for investigating hydrogen energy systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    5. Gunther Glenk & Stefan J. Reichelstein, 2019. "Synergistic Value in Vertically Integrated Power-to-Gas Energy Systems," CESifo Working Paper Series 7958, CESifo.
    6. Glenk, Gunther & Meier, Rebecca & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2021. "Cost dynamics of clean energy technologies," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-054, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Glenk, Gunther & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2022. "The economic dynamics of competing power generation sources," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    8. Gunther Friedl & Stefan Reichelstein & Amadeus Bach & Maximilian Blaschke & Lukas Kemmer, 2023. "Applications of the levelized cost concept," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(6), pages 1125-1148, August.
    9. Shaojie Song & Haiyang Lin & Peter Sherman & Xi Yang & Chris P. Nielsen & Xinyu Chen & Michael B. McElroy, 2021. "Production of hydrogen from offshore wind in China and cost-competitive supply to Japan," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-8, December.
    10. Schlund, David & Theile, Philipp, 2022. "Simultaneity of green energy and hydrogen production: Analysing the dispatch of a grid-connected electrolyser," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    11. Schauf, Magnus & Schwenen, Sebastian, 2021. "Mills of progress grind slowly? Estimating learning rates for onshore wind energy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    12. Rosa, Lorenzo & Mazzotti, Marco, 2022. "Potential for hydrogen production from sustainable biomass with carbon capture and storage," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    13. Nyangon, Joseph & Darekar, Ayesha, 2024. "Advancements in hydrogen energy systems: A review of levelized costs, financial incentives and technological innovations," Innovation and Green Development, Elsevier, vol. 3(3).
    14. Carlson, Ewa Lazarczyk & Pickford, Kit & Nyga-Łukaszewska, Honorata, 2023. "Green hydrogen and an evolving concept of energy security: Challenges and comparisons," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(P1).
    15. Lux, Benjamin & Pfluger, Benjamin, 2020. "A supply curve of electricity-based hydrogen in a decarbonized European energy system in 2050," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    16. Gunther Glenk & Rebecca Meier & Stefan Reichelstein, 2021. "Cost Dynamics of Clean Energy Technologies," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 179-206, June.
    17. Côté, Elizabeth & Salm, Sarah, 2022. "Risk-adjusted preferences of utility companies and institutional investors for battery storage and green hydrogen investment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    18. Bistline, John & Blanford, Geoffrey & Mai, Trieu & Merrick, James, 2021. "Modeling variable renewable energy and storage in the power sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    19. Quarton, Christopher J. & Samsatli, Sheila, 2020. "Should we inject hydrogen into gas grids? Practicalities and whole-system value chain optimisation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    20. Schlund, David & Theile, Philipp, 2021. "Simultaneity of green energy and hydrogen production: Analysing the dispatch of a grid-connected electrolyser," EWI Working Papers 2021-10, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-29520-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.