Supervisors: Dr. Dallia Ali, Robert Gordon University and Dr. Stephen Finney, University of Strathclyde
PhD Student: Ross Gazey, Robert Gordon University
Status: Closed
This research project will analyse and investigate the consequent dynamics of the distribution network in the presence of distributed energy storage technologies. The work will focus on using hydrogen as energy storage mechanism, where water (H2O) is split into H2 and O2 when excess renewable energy is available. H2 will be stored as fuel and O2 vented or used in other processes. Fuel Cells (FC), the H2 generator, will then use the stored H2 to generate electrical power and supply the grid with power when high demand is available or renewable production not available.
The work will consider finding solutions for grid problems that can arise when using storage technologies in conjunction with renewable and the network. These problems include: changes of power flow, power quality, voltage control, losses, protection device coordination and voltage flicker etc. In addition to this, one of the major issues to increase the penetration of renewables and their associated storage technologies is their techno-economic feasibility. It is intended to investigate the techno-economics of a hydrogen Fuel Cell energy storage system on the grid, and to define the break-even point where such technology is viable.
The supervisory team understand that there is an urgent need for investigating energy storage technologies which will add value in terms of energy capacity and grid balancing when operating at many distributed locations on the network. This work is timely to consider as there are many applications for energy storage onto the UK grid. This research will have a significant impact regionally, nationally and globally as it will pave the way removing the need for peak demand power stations, hence reducing the high emissions with these power stations. For instance, and for the UK alone, installing just a 1MW storage system at each of the 33/11kV sub-stations around the country would provide about 5GW of power storage (the UK consist of just above 5000 substations). This would provide a substantial cut down in ‘dirty’, high emitting peak power generation, hence inline with UK and EU targets.