Feasibility study of wind-to-hydrogen system for Arctic remote locations - Grimsey island case study

Today a lot of Arctic remote communities rely on electrical energy produced by diesel generators. This type of energy is very expensive as apart from high fuel prices, the transportation costs to the remote location, also need to be added. The goal of this study is to evaluate an application of the wind turbines combined with the hydrogen energy storage system for supporting existing diesel infrastructure on the example of Grimsey island (Iceland). HOMER Energy Microgrid Power Design software is used to perform energy balance simulations and to optimise the size of the system components. The statistical data about electrical energy consumption and wind resources on Grimsey are used as a case study. The results indicate that proposed system infrastructure might be a feasible solution and the payback period of below 4 years was estimated for the optimal system configuration. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.