Leveraging automotive fuel cells can supply zero-emission peak power in the near-term

Journal Article · Tue Jun 11 04:00:00 EDT 2024 · iScience

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.110246· OSTI ID:2470636

Chojkiewicz, Emilia ^[1]; Phadke, Amol ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); University of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

An increasingly decarbonized yet resilient power grid requires the corresponding build-out of dispatchable zero-emission resources to supply peak power. However, there is a recognized dearth of solutions which can serve multi-day peak demand events both cost-effectively and with near-term deployability. Here, we find that pairing low-cost automotive fuel cells with hydrogen storage in salt caverns can serve as a peaker plant at less than 500 US$/kW at present, a fraction of the cost of conventional fossil fuel-fired peakers. We demonstrate the peaker’s value for long duration storage by comparing it with pumped hydro and assessing its profitability within Texas’ energy-only market region. Although deployment of these peakers is constrained by the presence of salt caverns, we show that a number of sites in the United States and Europe are endowed with suitable salt formations, while utilizing hydrogen storage in pressurized containers could form a location-agnostic peak power solution.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 2470636
• Journal Information: iScience, Journal Name: iScience Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 27; ISSN 2589-0042
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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