Optimizing hydrogen production capacity and day ahead market bidding for a wind farm in Texas

Producing green hydrogen from wind energy is one potential method to mitigate curtail-ment. This study develops a general approach to examine the economic benefit of adding hydrogen production capacity through water electrolysis along with the fuel cell and storage facilities in a wind farm in north Texas. The study also investigates different day ahead market bidding strategies in the existence of these technologies. The results show that adding hydrogen capacity to the wind farm is profitable when hydrogen price is greater than $3.58/kg, and that the optimal day ahead market bidding strategy changes as hydrogen price changes. The results also suggest that both the addition of a fuel cell to reconvert stored hydrogen to electricity and the addition of a battery to smooth the elec-tricity input to the electrolyzer are suboptimal for the system in the case of this study. The profit of a particular bidding scenario is most sensitive to the selling price of hydrogen, and then the input parameters of the electrolyzer. This study also provides policy implications by investigating the impact of different policy schemes on the optimal hydrogen produc-tion level. (c) 2023 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study examines the economic benefit of adding hydrogen production capacity to a wind farm in north Texas and investigates different day ahead market bidding strategies. The results show that adding hydrogen capacity is profitable when the hydrogen price is above $3.58/kg and that the optimal bidding strategy changes with the hydrogen price.