MEGASTACK – creating affordable transport fuel from renewable electricity

Megastack – creating affordable transport fuel from renewable electricity This project involves the first customer facing implementation of a large 3MW water electrolyser with the potential to convert electricity to hydrogen at a price which is affordable for its use in the transport sector. This is a breakthrough compared to previous electrolyser projects in which the effective cost of hydrogen has been two to three times the equivalent price of petrol or diesel transportation. This breakthrough will enable the beginning of sales of the inter-connecting systems which will be deployed here on a commercial basis to markets for hydrogen transport which are emerging in the UK, Europe and worldwide. This has been achieved thanks to two UK-specific innovations which will be tested in this project: 1. Novel technology which has been developed by ITM Power specifically for highly responsive Megawatt scale electrolysers. These systems will bring the capital and maintenance costs of electrolysis down to the point where they contribute a manageable fraction of the cost of hydrogen production for transport applications, without compromising the system efficiency. The systems have been validated at a proof of concept scale, but this will be the first time that this technology has been deployed in a customer facing application. 2. The system will be deployed at a scale (3MW) which allows interaction with National Grid’s electricity balancing markets. The electrolyser is highly responsive (sub-second) and hence can participate in all of National Grid’s balancing markets. This project will test the participation of an electrolyser in these markets for the first time in the UK. This will prove that the electrolyser can provide valuable services to help manage a grid which must absorb large quantities of intermittent renewables. Providing these services secures a revenue stream for the plant operator which helps make the price of hydrogen production affordable for transport markets. In this way the project will demonstrate the interlinking of the electricity generation/distribution sectors with the energy demands of the transport sector in an economically and practically feasible fashion. In so doing, the project will demonstrate a key component of the inter-linked energy system of the future (namely the generation of hydrogen from electricity as a tool to balance grids which have a surplus of renewable electricity). The opportunity for this first of a kind installation arises because hydrogen fuelled vehicles are becoming increasingly commercially competitive. The hydrogen produced in this project will be compressed, stored and then used to fuel a fleet of at least 20 hydrogen buses. The buses will be procured as part of a major European hydrogen bus deployment project, which is supported by project partners Birmingham City Council and National Express. This guarantees a customer for the hydrogen produced and leads to a demand which is of a sufficient scale to justify the installation.