Indeed, the hydrogen economy is widely regarded as the future of alternative energy, but how can so many different hydrogen production technologies possibly be integrated into our national electrical grid?
Join the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) H2IQ Hour tomorrow, November 24, 2020, at 12 p.m. (ET) to learn about activities at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to evaluate, test, and validate the integration of hydrogen production technologies and the electrical grid.
Electrolyzers, which use electricity and water to produce hydrogen, have the potential to stabilize electrical demand while producing valuable hydrogen for target end-use applications.
The H2IQ Hour will highlight findings from research and demonstration efforts validating how electrolyzers can support grid services.
For example, electrolyzers can help minimize the demand spikes from intermittent fast charging of battery electric vehicles by providing a constant power demand while producing valuable hydrogen.
In addition, the H2IQ Hour will discuss how these efforts support Departmental and EERE-wide initiatives including H2@Scale and Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES).
The H2IQ Hour will include a 45-minute live presentation followed by 15 minutes of Q&A.
A recording of the H2IQ Hour will be available on the website after the event.
Register here.
Platform Addresses At-Scale Integration of Energy Systems
On August 12, 2020, U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette announced the launch of the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) platform at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) NREL.
ARIES is a cutting-edge research platform that will allow NREL researchers and the scientific community to address the fundamental challenges of integrated energy systems at scale.
“As our Nation’s energy system continues to undergo dramatic transformations, there is a growing need for research on how to best integrate all of our energy resources on the grid in order to provide the most reliable and affordable electricity to the American people,” said Secretary Brouillette at the ARIES launch. “ARIES is a flexible platform that provides the opportunity to develop and evaluate new technologies at a size and scale that matters.”
ARIES represents a substantial scale-up in experimentation capability from existing research platforms, allowing for research at the 20MW level. It will make it possible to understand the impact and get the most value from the millions of new devices—such as electric vehicles, renewable generation, hydrogen, energy storage, and grid-interactive efficient buildings —that are being connected to the grid daily.
The scale of the platform will also make it possible to consider opportunities and risks with the growing interdependencies between the power system and other infrastructure like natural gas, transportation, water, and telecommunications.
“ARIES will enable DOE and industry to understand the technical, operational, and financial impacts of new technologies in a rapidly evolving energy system,” said Assistant Secretary for the EERE, Daniel R. Simmons.
ARIES creates a research environment to investigate challenges in the areas of energy storage, power electronics, hybrid energy systems, future energy infrastructure, and cybersecurity—five research areas of critical importance.
The platform will leverage existing capabilities at NREL’s Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF), new capabilities at NREL’s Flatirons Campus, and a virtual emulation environment connecting hardware assets at these sites with millions of digitally emulated devices. A high-speed data link will interconnect ARIES with other national laboratories and research partners to enable access to a greater set of research capabilities.
“The ARIES platform will lay the foundation for the next generation of energy systems that are resilient, reliable, secure, affordable, and clean,” said NREL Director Martin Keller. “We are thrilled to welcome this new research capability to NREL and look forward to transforming the future energy landscape with our partners through ARIES-enabled research.”
Over this past year, NREL worked in close collaboration with EERE to develop ARIES. Additional guidance was provided by DOE’s Office of Electricity and the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response—as well as by other national laboratories, energy industry leaders, and academic partners.
In September 2020, NREL hosted an industry workshop to provide an overview of the platform to interested industry partners and share collaboration opportunities.
More information can be found HERE.
