H3P PROJECT - Modular Peak Power Plant
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  • Home
  • Context
  • Project
    • Project Introduction >
      • Background
      • Concept & Definition
      • Individual components
    • Theory >
      • Electrochemistry
      • System Losses
      • Assumptions & Symbols
    • Fuel Cell Measurements
  • Model
    • Approach
    • Parameters Definition
    • MATLAB Model
  • Results & Conclusions
    • H3P - Results
    • Discussion
    • Conclusions
  • Additional Information
    • Further Developments
    • Other Considerations
    • Alternative Applications
    • Acknowledgments
    • Bibliography
  • Team

REsults

H3P Results

        As one of the most important outputs of the project, we have the results to assess financial viability of the system. This section is divided in two subsections, which are the financial analysis for scenarios representing today’s circumstances and the financial analysis for scenarios representing our futuristic approach.

        In all this section, the results will be given for the 9 following schemes :
  • A1:      Aggressive demand profile, 1 hour needed to refill the system.
  • A10:    Aggressive demand profile, 10 hours needed to refill the system.
  • A20:   Aggressive demand profile, 20 hours needed to refill the system.
  • M1:     Moderate demand profile, 1 hour needed to refill the system.
  • M10:   Moderate demand profile, 10 hours needed to refill the system.
  • M20:  Moderate demand profile, 20 hours needed to refill the system.
  • L1:      Light demand profile, 1 hour needed to refill the system.
  • L10:    Light demand profile, 10 hours needed to refill the system.
  • L20:    Light demand profile, 20 hours needed to refill the system.

Present Scenarios

        As a baseline for our study, we first carried out this cost-effectiveness analysis with scenarios representing today circumstances. Here is a set of parameters we used (for more details about how we defined these parameters, please have a look to the Parameters Definition page):
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        Note that the round-trip efficiency used for this part (30%) represent a really optimistic kit of equipment.

          - Annual running cost surplus

        The following graph represents the amount of money that can be made throughout the year under today’s circumstances. The columns on the graph represent the scenario type (e.g A1 stands for “Aggressive scenario with 1 hour of refill rate”) and the rows on the graph represents the amount of money that can be made in a year.
         Note that this is the annual surplus, which means that every main expenses (bought electricity, operation and maintenance costs) have been taken into account, except for the loan repayment according to our approach. 
Picture

        As we can see, whatever the demand profile and whatever the refilling rate we consider, it is impossible to make money out the system in today's circumstances. The money made from selling electricity to the grid all over the year does not cover the required annual operation and maintenance costs.
        Therefore, as was expected, our system wouldn't be viable if it happens to exist today. Then, let's use these results as a baseline for the rest of our study.

Determining Parameters

        The most significant point of our project, we have a novel response to the Capacity Market, so it is important to state that our Hydrogen Peak Power Plant is a futuristic concept. We have clearly seen that considering today's circumstances, this system wouldn't be viable. Then, the question is, in what circumstances would it be viable ? Running our model with a wide range of scenarios, we managed to identify what are the main parameters impacting the viability of the system:
  • The required capital investment
  • The Operation & Maintenance costs
  • The difference between the buying price and the selling price of electricity
  • The round-trip efficiency of the system

        The interesting point is that all these parameters are most likely to evolve in the future in a way that could benefit the cost-effectiveness of the plant.
        Indeed, as for any technological equipment, the price of our system's components is most likely to decrease in the coming decades (as well as the Operation & Maintenance costs). The gap between the buying and the selling price of electricity is also likely to increase due to a potential increasing penetration of stochastic and non-dispatchable renewable sources of energy. As an example, wind farms might produce a lot of energy at low demand times (leading to the decrease of the buying price), and produce not enough energy at high demand times (leading to the increase of the selling price for peak power plants). Finally, we can expect some technical improvements that will make such a system more efficient, and therefore help its viability.

Future Scenarios

         In the light of this analysis, we define new scenarios representing a potential future. How our system would behave if the previous parameters happens to evolve in the coming decades. Here is a combination of parameters we estimated to be achievable in the future and that lead to some viable scenarios, as we will see next.

          - Annual running cost surplus

       
As previously, this first graph represent the amount of money that can be made throughout the year under today’s circumstances. The columns on the graph represent the scenario type (e.g A1 stands for “Aggressive scenario with 1 hour of refill rate”) and the rows on the graph represents the amount of money that can be made in a year.
         Note that this is the annual surplus, which means that every main expenses (bought electricity, operation and maintenance costs) have been taken into account, except for the loan repayment according to our approach. 
Picture
Picture

        As it can be seen from the graph above, under these new circumstances, it is possible to make money out of the "Aggressive" and the "Moderate" demand scenarios, as well as for the . However, making money isn't an enough output to claim the financial viability of the system. Therefore, based on the approach described in the Model page, we then calculated the Possible Capital Investment.

          - Possible capital investment

      Using the typical financial parameters defined earlier, we then calculated the amount of money the previous annual surplus would allow to borrow to the bank. The results associated to the futuristic parameters given above are shown on the next graph.
Picture

         As expected, the scenarios allowing to make the more money at the end of the year are the scenarios that enables to borrow the more money to buy and install the plant initially. The question is to know if this possible capital investment is enough to cover the actual required cost of the plant (purchase and installation).

        In order to answer this question, we compared this Possible Capital Investment and this Required Capital Cost. The results associated to the futuristic parameters given above are shown on the next graph.
Picture
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