- Email: [email protected]
ITM Power opens hydrogen station at Gatwick Airport
NEWS sectors, to collaborate on developing the European market for FCE’s large-scale molten carbonate fuel cell systems. FuelCell Energy is a global leader in fuel cell solutions for the affordable non-combustion based supply of baseload energy, while E.On Business Solutions – part of global energy firm E.On – provides tailored solutions for energy efficiency, decentralised power generation, flexibility, virtual power plants, and battery power storage. In July FuelCell Energy relaunched its sub-MW class MCFC solutions for Europe, the SureSource™ 250 and SureSource 400, in addition to its multi-MW SureSource systems [FCB, August 2019, p7]. ‘Our solution is a perfect fit for a number of needs throughout Europe, offering both distributed cost-effective energy for sub-MW applications, and large-scale, multi-MW continuous clean power for industrial and utilityscale applications,’ says Jason Few, President and CEO of FuelCell Energy [September 2019, p7]. ‘With this collaboration, together we will be able to offer customers across Europe flexible financial solutions ranging from power purchase agreements, capital leases, and attractive purchase options with the full support of E.On.’ E.On currently owns two fuel cell plants in Germany: a 1.4 MW plant (SureSource 1500) at the German headquarters and production facility of Friatec AG in Mannheim [October 2016, p5], and a 400 kW (SureSource 400) plant at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Frankfurt [March 2017, p6]. In Germany, SureSource systems receive a 60% reduction on the Erneuerbare-EnergienGesetz (EEG) renewable energy levy. FuelCell Energy: www.fuelcellenergy.com E.On Business Solutions GmbH: https://tinyurl.com/eon-business-solutions
Bloom cuts Illumina’s footprint, systems for CalBio, EnergyPower
C
alifornia-based Bloom Energy has installed Bloom Energy Servers at the San Diego headquarters of biotech company Illumina, and is collaborating with California Bioenergy (CalBio) to deploy its solid oxide fuel cell technology for the clean conversion of dairy waste into renewable electricity. Bloom is also partnering with EnergyPower in New Delhi, to deploy an integrated solution for supplying clean, reliable power to local Indian businesses. The 3.5 MW Bloom Energy SOFC system installed at Illumina’s headquarters is the 10
Fuel Cells Bulletin
largest fuel cell power generation system in San Diego, and will help to significantly reduce the biotech company’s environmental footprint. The onsite power system is expected to save as much as 3600 tonnes of CO2 and 540 million gallons (2 million m3) of water per annum compared to the US grid. Meanwhile, Bloom Energy and CalBio – based in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley – are collaborating to deploy a commercial solution for the conversion of dairy waste into renewable electricity. The combination of CalBio’s dairy digester technology with Bloom’s SOFC system delivers an end-toend solution for the capture of methane and generation of renewable electricity. CalBio digesters capture biogas, primarily comprising methane, released from the anaerobic decomposition of dairy manure, and also remove hydrogen sulfide. The biogas is then converted to renewable electricity in a Bloom Energy Server, and the resulting ‘green’ electricity can be transmitted via the electric grid to EV charging stations throughout California. And in India, EnergyPower will deploy a new agricultural and municipal waste digester in combination with Bloom Energy’s SOFC technology, to deliver reliable, renewable power to customers in the Shirala district of the western state of Maharashtra. Anaerobic digesters will be used to produce biomethane that will fuel 4 MW of Bloom Energy Servers that Bloom plans to install and operate at the plant in Shirala in the first half of 2020. Once complete, this project will be Bloom’s first commercial-scale, onsite biogas-to-electricity project in India. Bloom Energy India has more than 250 employees in Mumbai and Bangalore (Bengaluru). The company has deployed a 3.5 MW project to meet the power needs of tech giant Intel’s campus in Bangalore, and recently announced that it is working on the Whitefield Tower commercial real estate development in Bangalore [FCB, September 2019, p7]. Bloom Energy: www.bloomenergy.com Illumina: www.illumina.com California Bioenergy: www.calbioenergy.com
FUELING
Latest H2 Mobility site in Bad Homburg opens with Air Liquide tech
T
he H2 Mobility Deutschland joint venture has opened its latest hydrogen refueling station in Germany, in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe in the
central German state of Hesse, using hydrogen technology from Air Liquide. H2 Mobility Deutschland – formed in 2015 to facilitate a staged nationwide expansion of hydrogen stations to serve fuel cell electric vehicles in Germany [FCB, November 2015, p6] – owns and operates the new station, located at the existing Hessol filling station at OberEschbacher-Strasse 142. The facility holds around 200 kg of hydrogen, enough to refuel 40–50 vehicles per day. The station is being supported by the European Commission’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T CEF), as part of the Connecting Hydrogen Refuelling Stations (COHRS) project. The district town of Bad Homburg is conveniently located on the A5 motorway, and complements the hydrogen station network with connections to the RhineMain metropolitan region. Bad Homburg was awarded funding last year to construct the hydrogen station, during H2 Mobility’s second call for locations [February 2018, p7]. The addition of Bad Homburg to the national network brings the total to 76 hydrogen refueling stations in Germany; by the beginning of 2020 there will be 100. Air Liquide technology [see also page 11] is also being used in the new H2 Mobility Deutschland stations in Mönchengladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia and at Hamburg Airport [October 2019, p8]. H2 Mobility Deutschland: https://h2.live/en Air Liquide, Hydrogen Energy: http://tinyurl.com/hydrogen-energy-airliquide Air Liquide Deutschland GmbH: https://industrie.airliquide.de [in German] Connecting Hydrogen Refuelling Stations project: www.cohrs-project.eu/english
ITM Power opens hydrogen station at Gatwick Airport
I
n the UK, ITM Power has opened its eighth publicly accessible hydrogen refueling station, at the Shell services site for Gatwick Airport off the M23 motorway south of London. The Gatwick Airport hydrogen station lies just off the M23, linking the M25 with the south coast, and uses electricity via a renewable energy contract to generate hydrogen onsite via water electrolysis. It joins ITM Power facilities at Cobham on the M25 [FCB, March 2017, p8], Beaconsfield on the M40 [April 2018, p8], Rainham in Essex on the A13 [November 2016, p6], Teddington in west London [June 2016,
November 2019
NEWS p9], Rotherham on the M1 [September 2015, p1], Kirkwall in Orkney [see the ‘BIG HIT’ News Feature in October 2016], and Swindon on the M4 [October 2018, p9]. The new station is the second of two in the UK (with Swindon) deployed under the panEuropean H2ME2 project [June 2016, p1], funded by the EU-supported Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) and the UK’s Office of Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV). It is the third Shell branded hydrogen refueling site in the UK. ITM recently extended its hydrogen refueling collaboration agreement with Shell to 2024, covering refueling of all types of hydrogen vehicles, from cars to commercial vehicles, buses, trucks, trains, and ships [June 2019, p9]. The company manufactures integrated hydrogen energy solutions for grid balancing, energy storage, and the production of ‘green’ hydrogen [see the feature in January 2012]. In the summer it signed the lease for the world’s largest electrolyser factory in Sheffield, with a production capacity of 1 GW per annum [August 2019, p11]. ITM Power: www.itm-power.com Shell, Hydrogen Fuel: http://tinyurl.com/shell-h2 Hydrogen Mobility Europe: www.h2me.eu Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking: www.fch.europa.eu UK Office of Low Emission Vehicles: http://tinyurl.com/uk-olev
Air Liquide, Houpu open first station in Zhejiang Province
T
he first hydrogen refueling station in Zhejiang Province, China, was inaugurated in mid-October. The facility is equipped with technology supplied by the Air Liquide Houpu joint venture, and will be operated by Sinopec (China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation). This station is the first by Air Liquide Houpu, a joint venture created in the spring that combines Air Liquide’s global technological expertise in hydrogen solutions for clean mobility with Houpu’s leadership in the design and construction of natural gas stations in the Chinese market [FCB, May 2019, p9]. The facility is located in the city of Jiashan, on the southern edge of Shanghai, and is integrated into a multi-energy Sinopec service station. It is capable of daily refueling more than 30 of the 100 hydrogen electric buses that
November 2019
the municipality plans to roll out in the next few months. The combination of their respective knowhow means that Air Liquide [see also page 10] and Houpu are able to provide customers with state-of-the-art hydrogen solutions and meet the growing demand in the Chinese market for energy-efficient, environmentally friendly energy solutions [December 2018, p11].
GREEN HYDROGEN
Tractebel plans green hydrogen production using offshore wind
G
University of Edinburgh, School of GeoSciences: www.ed.ac.uk/geosciences
erman companies Tractebel Engineering GmbH and Tractebel Overdick GmbH are developing a unique concept for an offshore platform, to produce ‘green’ hydrogen from offshore wind energy on an industrial scale using electrolysis. Delivering up to 400 MW, such plants would greatly exceed the output of previous technologies, and could be put into practice today, for example in the North Sea. The innovative offshore platform would enable a number of tasks to be solved simultaneously. For example, the proportion of green hydrogen in the energy mix could be increased on a CO2-neutral basis, and the wide range of options for transporting hydrogen provide relief for the electricity transmission grid, which has limited capacity. Hydrogen can also be used as an efficient energy storage medium to balance out seasonal fluctuations in renewable energy sources. Tractebel sees enormous potential for CO2-neutral hydrogen production in largescale offshore wind farms. Its engineers are working on a detailed solution for using a new type of platform model at an industrial scale, i.e. 400 MW. It accommodates all the technical components required for production, including electrolysis units, transformers, and desalinisation plants. The transportation of the energy generated in this way can be done via pipeline or ship, offering an alternative to overloaded cable lines on the seabed or overland. Although the costs of green hydrogen are currently somewhat higher than for ‘grey’ hydrogen from fossil sources, higher taxation of CO2 emissions and other actions would ensure greater equality of opportunities. The critical cost factors are system design and plant efficiency. The Tractebel concept includes appropriate solutions for costoptimised designs and efficient operation. Tractebel is capable of undertaking all the engineering services for every stage of planning, from the feasibility study to detailed design. Moreover, as part of the Engie Group [see pages 6 and 7], it is well placed to deliver and operate offshore hydrogen platforms as an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) supplier, and to offer large-scale storage solutions.
Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage: www.sccs.org.uk
Tractebel: www.tractebel-engie.com
Air Liquide, Hydrogen Energy: http://tinyurl.com/hydrogen-energy-airliquide Houpu Clean Energy Co: http://en.hqhop.com
ENERGY STORAGE & P2G
Edinburgh project on underground hydrogen storage to cut carbon
G
eoscientists at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, UK have been awarded £1.4 million (US$1.8 million) in funding to study how hydrogen can be stored underground, in pioneering work on a technology that could aid efforts to decarbonise the UK’s energy sector. The project aims to improve understanding of hydrogen storage, and will look at the fundamental physical and chemical processes. The researchers will use state-of-the-art experimental facilities to study how hydrogen reacts and moves underground, and software to work out how to efficiently inject and recover the gas. They will also engage with the public to ensure that hydrogen storage develops in a way that is both technically feasible and socially acceptable. The three-year HyStorPor (Hydrogen Storage in Porous Media) project is funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and will be coordinated by Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage – the UK’s largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) research group – at a new multidisciplinary hub based at the University of Edinburgh. The team is led by Stuart Haszeldine, Professor of Carbon Capture and Storage, and includes other Edinburgh scientists, as well as researchers at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and Imperial College London. The project is supported by an international advisory board including representatives from industry and government.
Fuel Cells Bulletin
11
Bloom cuts Illumina’s footprint, systems for CalBio, EnergyPower
C
alifornia-based Bloom Energy has installed Bloom Energy Servers at the San Diego headquarters of biotech company Illumina, and is collaborating with California Bioenergy (CalBio) to deploy its solid oxide fuel cell technology for the clean conversion of dairy waste into renewable electricity. Bloom is also partnering with EnergyPower in New Delhi, to deploy an integrated solution for supplying clean, reliable power to local Indian businesses. The 3.5 MW Bloom Energy SOFC system installed at Illumina’s headquarters is the 10
Fuel Cells Bulletin
largest fuel cell power generation system in San Diego, and will help to significantly reduce the biotech company’s environmental footprint. The onsite power system is expected to save as much as 3600 tonnes of CO2 and 540 million gallons (2 million m3) of water per annum compared to the US grid. Meanwhile, Bloom Energy and CalBio – based in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley – are collaborating to deploy a commercial solution for the conversion of dairy waste into renewable electricity. The combination of CalBio’s dairy digester technology with Bloom’s SOFC system delivers an end-toend solution for the capture of methane and generation of renewable electricity. CalBio digesters capture biogas, primarily comprising methane, released from the anaerobic decomposition of dairy manure, and also remove hydrogen sulfide. The biogas is then converted to renewable electricity in a Bloom Energy Server, and the resulting ‘green’ electricity can be transmitted via the electric grid to EV charging stations throughout California. And in India, EnergyPower will deploy a new agricultural and municipal waste digester in combination with Bloom Energy’s SOFC technology, to deliver reliable, renewable power to customers in the Shirala district of the western state of Maharashtra. Anaerobic digesters will be used to produce biomethane that will fuel 4 MW of Bloom Energy Servers that Bloom plans to install and operate at the plant in Shirala in the first half of 2020. Once complete, this project will be Bloom’s first commercial-scale, onsite biogas-to-electricity project in India. Bloom Energy India has more than 250 employees in Mumbai and Bangalore (Bengaluru). The company has deployed a 3.5 MW project to meet the power needs of tech giant Intel’s campus in Bangalore, and recently announced that it is working on the Whitefield Tower commercial real estate development in Bangalore [FCB, September 2019, p7]. Bloom Energy: www.bloomenergy.com Illumina: www.illumina.com California Bioenergy: www.calbioenergy.com
FUELING
Latest H2 Mobility site in Bad Homburg opens with Air Liquide tech
T
he H2 Mobility Deutschland joint venture has opened its latest hydrogen refueling station in Germany, in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe in the
central German state of Hesse, using hydrogen technology from Air Liquide. H2 Mobility Deutschland – formed in 2015 to facilitate a staged nationwide expansion of hydrogen stations to serve fuel cell electric vehicles in Germany [FCB, November 2015, p6] – owns and operates the new station, located at the existing Hessol filling station at OberEschbacher-Strasse 142. The facility holds around 200 kg of hydrogen, enough to refuel 40–50 vehicles per day. The station is being supported by the European Commission’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T CEF), as part of the Connecting Hydrogen Refuelling Stations (COHRS) project. The district town of Bad Homburg is conveniently located on the A5 motorway, and complements the hydrogen station network with connections to the RhineMain metropolitan region. Bad Homburg was awarded funding last year to construct the hydrogen station, during H2 Mobility’s second call for locations [February 2018, p7]. The addition of Bad Homburg to the national network brings the total to 76 hydrogen refueling stations in Germany; by the beginning of 2020 there will be 100. Air Liquide technology [see also page 11] is also being used in the new H2 Mobility Deutschland stations in Mönchengladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia and at Hamburg Airport [October 2019, p8]. H2 Mobility Deutschland: https://h2.live/en Air Liquide, Hydrogen Energy: http://tinyurl.com/hydrogen-energy-airliquide Air Liquide Deutschland GmbH: https://industrie.airliquide.de [in German] Connecting Hydrogen Refuelling Stations project: www.cohrs-project.eu/english
ITM Power opens hydrogen station at Gatwick Airport
I
n the UK, ITM Power has opened its eighth publicly accessible hydrogen refueling station, at the Shell services site for Gatwick Airport off the M23 motorway south of London. The Gatwick Airport hydrogen station lies just off the M23, linking the M25 with the south coast, and uses electricity via a renewable energy contract to generate hydrogen onsite via water electrolysis. It joins ITM Power facilities at Cobham on the M25 [FCB, March 2017, p8], Beaconsfield on the M40 [April 2018, p8], Rainham in Essex on the A13 [November 2016, p6], Teddington in west London [June 2016,
November 2019
NEWS p9], Rotherham on the M1 [September 2015, p1], Kirkwall in Orkney [see the ‘BIG HIT’ News Feature in October 2016], and Swindon on the M4 [October 2018, p9]. The new station is the second of two in the UK (with Swindon) deployed under the panEuropean H2ME2 project [June 2016, p1], funded by the EU-supported Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) and the UK’s Office of Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV). It is the third Shell branded hydrogen refueling site in the UK. ITM recently extended its hydrogen refueling collaboration agreement with Shell to 2024, covering refueling of all types of hydrogen vehicles, from cars to commercial vehicles, buses, trucks, trains, and ships [June 2019, p9]. The company manufactures integrated hydrogen energy solutions for grid balancing, energy storage, and the production of ‘green’ hydrogen [see the feature in January 2012]. In the summer it signed the lease for the world’s largest electrolyser factory in Sheffield, with a production capacity of 1 GW per annum [August 2019, p11]. ITM Power: www.itm-power.com Shell, Hydrogen Fuel: http://tinyurl.com/shell-h2 Hydrogen Mobility Europe: www.h2me.eu Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking: www.fch.europa.eu UK Office of Low Emission Vehicles: http://tinyurl.com/uk-olev
Air Liquide, Houpu open first station in Zhejiang Province
T
he first hydrogen refueling station in Zhejiang Province, China, was inaugurated in mid-October. The facility is equipped with technology supplied by the Air Liquide Houpu joint venture, and will be operated by Sinopec (China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation). This station is the first by Air Liquide Houpu, a joint venture created in the spring that combines Air Liquide’s global technological expertise in hydrogen solutions for clean mobility with Houpu’s leadership in the design and construction of natural gas stations in the Chinese market [FCB, May 2019, p9]. The facility is located in the city of Jiashan, on the southern edge of Shanghai, and is integrated into a multi-energy Sinopec service station. It is capable of daily refueling more than 30 of the 100 hydrogen electric buses that
November 2019
the municipality plans to roll out in the next few months. The combination of their respective knowhow means that Air Liquide [see also page 10] and Houpu are able to provide customers with state-of-the-art hydrogen solutions and meet the growing demand in the Chinese market for energy-efficient, environmentally friendly energy solutions [December 2018, p11].
GREEN HYDROGEN
Tractebel plans green hydrogen production using offshore wind
G
University of Edinburgh, School of GeoSciences: www.ed.ac.uk/geosciences
erman companies Tractebel Engineering GmbH and Tractebel Overdick GmbH are developing a unique concept for an offshore platform, to produce ‘green’ hydrogen from offshore wind energy on an industrial scale using electrolysis. Delivering up to 400 MW, such plants would greatly exceed the output of previous technologies, and could be put into practice today, for example in the North Sea. The innovative offshore platform would enable a number of tasks to be solved simultaneously. For example, the proportion of green hydrogen in the energy mix could be increased on a CO2-neutral basis, and the wide range of options for transporting hydrogen provide relief for the electricity transmission grid, which has limited capacity. Hydrogen can also be used as an efficient energy storage medium to balance out seasonal fluctuations in renewable energy sources. Tractebel sees enormous potential for CO2-neutral hydrogen production in largescale offshore wind farms. Its engineers are working on a detailed solution for using a new type of platform model at an industrial scale, i.e. 400 MW. It accommodates all the technical components required for production, including electrolysis units, transformers, and desalinisation plants. The transportation of the energy generated in this way can be done via pipeline or ship, offering an alternative to overloaded cable lines on the seabed or overland. Although the costs of green hydrogen are currently somewhat higher than for ‘grey’ hydrogen from fossil sources, higher taxation of CO2 emissions and other actions would ensure greater equality of opportunities. The critical cost factors are system design and plant efficiency. The Tractebel concept includes appropriate solutions for costoptimised designs and efficient operation. Tractebel is capable of undertaking all the engineering services for every stage of planning, from the feasibility study to detailed design. Moreover, as part of the Engie Group [see pages 6 and 7], it is well placed to deliver and operate offshore hydrogen platforms as an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) supplier, and to offer large-scale storage solutions.
Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage: www.sccs.org.uk
Tractebel: www.tractebel-engie.com
Air Liquide, Hydrogen Energy: http://tinyurl.com/hydrogen-energy-airliquide Houpu Clean Energy Co: http://en.hqhop.com
ENERGY STORAGE & P2G
Edinburgh project on underground hydrogen storage to cut carbon
G
eoscientists at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, UK have been awarded £1.4 million (US$1.8 million) in funding to study how hydrogen can be stored underground, in pioneering work on a technology that could aid efforts to decarbonise the UK’s energy sector. The project aims to improve understanding of hydrogen storage, and will look at the fundamental physical and chemical processes. The researchers will use state-of-the-art experimental facilities to study how hydrogen reacts and moves underground, and software to work out how to efficiently inject and recover the gas. They will also engage with the public to ensure that hydrogen storage develops in a way that is both technically feasible and socially acceptable. The three-year HyStorPor (Hydrogen Storage in Porous Media) project is funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and will be coordinated by Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage – the UK’s largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) research group – at a new multidisciplinary hub based at the University of Edinburgh. The team is led by Stuart Haszeldine, Professor of Carbon Capture and Storage, and includes other Edinburgh scientists, as well as researchers at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and Imperial College London. The project is supported by an international advisory board including representatives from industry and government.
Fuel Cells Bulletin
11