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Description
The BEHYOND project, promoted by EDP NEW, fits in the ocean renewable energies and hydrogen energy sector and its main motivation is to contribute to the decarbonization of the economy and to the blue growth in Europe, and Portugal in particular. Its unique proposition has a new business model based in producing hydrogen from curtailed wind energy, focusing on the minimization of the Overall CAPEX and OPEX of the system to be developed. Moreover, the project will give to the partners and to the promoter important competitive advantages by promoting the emergence of a unique and innovative technological offer since there are no systems planned with the same characteristics as BEHYOND. This offer will pioneer the emerging value chain of the hydrogen energy vector in the context of the blue economy, providing the developers with first-hand access to the technology solutions.
It represents an important starting point for Portuguese companies to position and take a leading role within the emerging hydrogen market. Hydrogen constitutes the opportunity for Portuguese research centers and academia to add relevant competencies to their highly qualified knowledge portfolio. The work to be developed under BEHYOND scope will allow the Portuguese research centers involved to offer innovative services and consultancy to external engineering companies, presenting itself as an opportunity for strengthening the collaboration and relationship between academia, research centers and national and international companies. The project will start by assessing the potential market for the hydrogen production module that will meet the customer and market requirements, which will be translated into a strong business case allied with strategic geographies to start commercializing the developed product. The project will also analyze the risks, the mitigation measures and the innovation requirements to allow rapid industrial development and a viable commercialization of the product.
Summary of project results
The BEHYOND project conducted a detailed review of the potential market for the hydrogen production module based upon a strong business case developed considering all key stakeholders that translates in a new business plan. Successively, the design and engineering have been developed representing the cornerstone of the whole system. Additionally, BEHYOND established the operational philosophy for the system, and in particular for the hydrogen production module design and associated infrastructure, that support the business model(s), both in terms of the hydrogen market requirements and the overall OPEX of the system. Finally, the project analyzed the risks, mitigation measures and innovation requirements to allow rapid industrial development and fruitful commercial exploitation of the product developed.
In light of the current state of the art, the main innovations of this project were: 1. The establishment of new business model(s) for combined offshore wind and hydrogen production 2. The establishment of an operational philosophy for the system, and in particular for the electrolysers, that support the business model(s), both in terms of the hydrogen market requirements and the overall OPEX of the system.
The key technical advances made during BEHYOND are as follows:
- Development of a concept design for both, a centralized and/or decentralized large-scale offshore hydrogen production facility on bottom-fixed and floating substructures incl. all ancillary systems and additional infrastructure required so that the concept can be exploited worldwide.
- Development of a novel techno-economic assessment model that enables the user to evaluate the economic viability of different variations to produce hydrogen from offshore wind energy. The model will further allow to optimally size and dimension the hybrid energy system and provides realistic cost estimates for the different components of the system incl. the offshore wind farm (OWF), the hydrogen production unit and substructure, additional on- and offshore infrastructure investments as well as estimations of the operating costs of such system.
- Development of a modular offshore hydrogen production unit for optimized and cost-effective solutions that can be configured and multiplied to meet the capacity needs in different applications and that is easily configurable for different environments.
- Development of novel control system and logic to accommodate different operating set-points of both the offshore wind farm and the electrolyser according to a combined understanding of external market signals and available wind resources. The proposed control and advisory system philosophy focus not only the total electrolyser load (or required hydrogen production), but also on the prioritization between electrolyser stacks in a coordinated manner that contributes to grid stability, and minimization of OPEX in terms of stack efficiency and lifetime.
- Novel marine operation and maintenance strategy of the hybrid energy system composed of the OWF and the offshore hydrogen production facility. An assessment of viable installation, O&M and decommissioning strategies has allowed to better understand the logistic requirements while controlling economic impacts.
- Recommendations for future extensions of relevant standards, guidelines and materials for offshore hydrogen production facilities identified.
Summary of bilateral results
TechnipFMC is currently developing off-grid, offshore energy solutions based on the combination of floating wind power and hydrogen - a project called Deep Purple. TechnipFMC has developed solutions within four market segments; (1) offshore wind and offshore production of hydrogen including subsea storage of the hydrogen to deliver stable and renewable power to oil&gas installations, (2) offshore wind and hydrogen to deliver stable and renewable power to remote islands, (3) offshore wind and hydrogen production integrated into SPAR wind turbine sub-structure with high pressure storage and pipeline export to future onshore hydrogen market, (4) subsea hydrogen storage and pipeline infrastructure for local storage in harbors and costal distribution around coastal cities. The four segments are developed on a conceptual level and the goal in 2020 is to reach TRL-level 5 (EU-scale) by Q1 2020 on technology component level. TechnipFMC has initiated qualification testing on materials suitable for combined hydrogen and seawater exposure and review of electrolysers, fuel cells and compressors with regards to offshore operation (humid and moving environment). The objective of Deep Purple phase 2 has also been to develop engineering tools and technically and economically robust concepts based on offshore wind and hydrogen technologies for the four alternative market segments outlined above. The project builds on the solution for market segment (3); however, in BEHYOND special attention has been given to the integration into wind farm operation (use of curtailed power) and to develop a stand-alone modularized structure for hydrogen production. All the results achieved within BEHYOND are shared, the collaboration lead to improve the knowledge and understanding of the whole consortium. This collaboration represented only the beginning of a long-shared journey to make offshore hydrogen production from wind energy a reality.