Power-to-Gas Conversion Technologies and Related Systems

Wind and solar energy must play a major role to achieve 20% energy consumption from renewable energy in the EU by 2020, as proposed by the European Commission Renewable Energy Roadmap target. However, as renewable energies are variable and intermittent, they cannot be expected to provide a safe and steady supply by themselves. As a result, to achieve the transformation to a renewable energy based system, largescale energy storage is required to make use of renewable energy surplus which cannot be supplied to the grid and to offset variations. This electric power surplus can be used to produce hydrogen, which may be injected back to the existing natural gas energy grid. This conversion is carried out through water electrolysis. Hydrogen production based on renewable energy sources may help to improve management of these types of plants as they may be viewed as administrable plants by grid operators. Thanks to this technique, hydrogen is generated through water electrolysers, making the most of renewable energy surplus and becoming a sustainable hydrogen generation source.