Power-to-gas as an option for improving energy self-consumption in renewable energy communities

Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) have been introduced by the Renewable Energy European Directive (REDII) in order to allow their members to collectively produce, consume, store and sell renewable energy. With the distributed generation deployment, the electricity injection into power grids has to be limited. Thereby, the RES management has to maximise the local energy self-consumption (SC). The present work deals with Power-to-Gas (PtG) application for blending hydrogen in the local gas grid for maximising the energy-SC, comparing it with traditional electric batteries (PtP). Moreover, this study investigate how SC-based tariffs for RECs can represent an indirect incentive for hydrogen production. To do so, a case study, consisting of 200 dwellings, has been analysed. Four PV configuration have been considered for evaluating different RES excess conditions. PtP and PtG systems have been implemented and compared each other. The hydrogen production cost has been assessed exploiting the renewable electricity incentive scheme. (c) 2022 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) have been introduced to collectively produce, consume, store, and sell renewable energy. This study investigates the application of Power-to-Gas (PtG) technology for blending hydrogen in the local gas grid to maximize energy self-consumption. It also compares PtG with traditional electric batteries (PtP) and explores how self-consumption-based tariffs can incentivize hydrogen production.