Control and power balancing of an off-grid wind turbine with co-located electrolyzer

Timmers, Victor and Egea Alvarez, Agusti and Gkountaras, Aris and Xu, Lie (2024) Control and power balancing of an off-grid wind turbine with co-located electrolyzer. IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy. pp. 1-12. ISSN 1949-3029 (https://doi.org/10.1109/TSTE.2024.3418043)

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Abstract

Co-locating electrolyzers and offshore wind can significantly reduce the cost of green hydrogen. However, without a grid connection, a new control paradigm is required for the electrolyzer to follow the variable power supplied by the wind turbine. Commercial electrolyzers have power ramp rate limitations, which can result in a mismatch between the wind turbine and electrolyzer power, leading to frequent shutdown and potentially unstable operation. This paper is the first to develop a control system for this off-grid operation with three mechanisms to dynamically balance the power, including energy storage, rotor inertia, and enhanced pitch control. The results show that a $6.8M supercapacitor is required with a power rating and capacity of approximately 6.7 MW and 8.5 kWh to enable the system to operate through 99% of the annual wind variation. If the electrolyzer ramp rates can be doubled, the same operating hours can be achieved using only control-based power balancing methods at the cost of a marginal reduction in energy production. If commercial electrolyzer ramp rates can be tripled, the system is able to operate without the need for any power balancing.

Persistent Identifier

https://doi.org/10.17868/strath.00089677
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