Hydrogen production for solar energy storage

Abstract

Using solar energy in photovoltaic power plants is an important method of electricity generation from renewable sources. Its potential is vast and technically easy to utilise. At present, photovoltaic power plants are the fastest-growing renewable energy source (RES) in the Czech Republic. Their installed capacity reached 1390 MWp (December 2010). Only in the last two years more than 1300 MWp was put in operation. This rapid development of photovoltaic sources is having a negative effect on the electric power system control. One option for mitigating this effect is to store the energy generated by photovoltaic in times of excess power in the grid and supply it to the grid when required, i.e., during peak periods of the daily load curve. There are numerous different storage technologies. The hydrogen system can be used to provide for storage of electric power in large amounts as well. This paper describes the state-of-the-art in the field of our research into solar energy storage in the Technical University of Ostrava.