By David Dodge
Is it better to focus on solar, battery storage, electric vehicles, or hydrogen? That’s the question Dr. Walter Mérida a researcher with the University of British Columbia wants to answer with their recently announced $23 million Renewable Energy Hub.
“Well, given the fact that we have two or three decades to make a difference. I don’t think this is an either-or situation. This is an all-of-the-above situation. We need to explore all possible options,” says Mérida.
The new renewable energy hub will occupy a full city block of land and it will integrate one megawatt of solar with battery storage, a bi-directional electric vehicle charging system and a hydrolysis unit that will use solar energy to produce hydrogen.
The hub will even have a hydrogen refueling station for hydrogen vehicles.
The solar will be installed on a parking garage with space dedicated for electric vehicles.
Electric Vehicles – combine them for a city-scale battery
“We are taking as many electric vehicles as we can and aggregating them into that single parking building and delivering this solar energy to the cars. The energy will be delivered to a reversible energy management system in such a way that the cars can be charged in one part of the cycle, but they can also deliver power back to the grid in another part of the cycle,” says Mérida.
The future is not solar, energy storage, electric vehicles or hydrogen it’s a strategically optimized integrated combination of solutions.
“Without significant investment, you have used existing infrastructure, a parking garage that you had to build anyway, and the cars that were already there to be in the loop to create a city-scale battery,” says Mérida.
“So instead of thinking of a refueling station, an electric vehicle, or a charging station separately, you can start thinking of these assets as an integrated system that uses artificial intelligence.”
Artificial intelligence will learn to optimize for whatever parameters you want such as cost, emissions reductions, or optimizing the use of solar energy.
In the past, the answer to the grid’s problems was always massive and very expensive infrastructure projects. Here it’s smart grid software, clever policies, and integration that finds the best way to build a zero-emissions future.
EVs – Transforming a problem into a resource
Without smart systems, all of the electric vehicle owners arrive at work, plug their cars in and create a big strain on the system. Building the capacity to charge all the cars at once would be very expensive.
But by using a smart system you can not only even out electricity demand, but you could also match it to solar production, or other parameters and suddenly the electric car “problem” becomes a valuable asset in managing the power supply.
As an example, you could, says Mérida offer EV drivers reduced parking fees, and in exchange, owners would hook their cars up to the bi-directional charging system that draws power at optimal times and even feeds power back into the system as needed.
The Renewable Energy Hub will also have batteries built into the system which helps you store electricity when the sun isn’t shining, but “you cannot store electricity in large quantities in batteries because you will need an enormous amount of battery.”
This is where the hydrogen system comes in. “The energy can be delivered to a water electrolyzer and this device is going to split pure water into hydrogen and oxygen. And the hydrogen will be delivered to tanks, which will store it at pressures that are compatible with the needs of heavy and light-duty vehicles,” says Mérida.
Using solar to fuel big trucks?
“The key thing about hydrogen is not about cars and buses and trucks. Only. The key thing is the ability to connect the revolution in the renewable electricity technologies to sectors that cannot be run on electricity: transportation – airplanes, trains, trucks, and ships for example.”
Actually, there are several “key” things here.
First, you always have a higher value use for solar energy, so you are optimizing the use of intermittent and very cheap solar energy.
Second, you are now converting solar energy into a fuel that runs things like trucks and planes and it can even be used to heat buildings.
And thirdly you can now store massive amounts of energy in the form of hydrogen for later use.
Hydrogen can be injected into existing natural gas system.
“You can add a very gigantic amount of hydrogen before you change the composition of that natural gas significantly. So, the existing natural gas grid becomes your storage vessel for clean electrons from the sun in the form of hydrogen,” says Mérida.
By doing this you are lowering the carbon content of natural gas being delivered to furnaces or boilers. “So, you are decarbonizing space heating. Eventually, you can envision a situation where you may run that entire boiler on pure hydrogen, which gets you to a place where space heating can now be zero missions.”
Hydrogen’s role in a pathway to a zero emissions future
By engaging with the conventional energy players the approach also helps create a more “just transition” for labour in those industries and it also engages those traditional industries, many of which are trying to find their place in this new energy world.
Hydrogen appears to be a potential lynch-pin to integrate and optimize the use of renewable energy. One of the disadvantages of hydrogen is it is currently two to 14 times more energy intensive to produce, especially when compared to electric vehicles which can take electricity and turn energy into motion at up to 95 per cent efficiency rates.
Hydrogen is still too expensive compared to fossil fuels says Mérida, but “I think the same kind of cost reduction and scaling up that you saw in solar and wind energy is going to be evident in hydrogen,” says Mérida.
In the lab Mérida says they are looking at producing hydrogen at $2 per kilogram which he says hits targets set by the U.S. Department of Energy.
And Canada is already a leader in hydrogen. “The first fuel cell company of global significance is a Canadian company. I was, frankly, very lucky as a student to meet both Jeffrey Ballard,” says Mérida talking about Ballard Power, a prominent Canadian fuel cell company.
“If you combine clean electricity and hydrogen, you can provide all the energy services that society demands right now with zero carbon. I’m convinced of that.”