HARNESSING OPERATIONAL FLEXIBILITY FROM POWER TO HYDROGEN IN A GRID-TIED INTEGRATED ENERGY SYSTEM

Integrated energy systems (IES) are desirable in the power system due to their self-sufficiency and prompt response during critical operating conditions. In addition to reinforcing the system robustness, they are also capable of providing a number of ancillary services. Over the recent years, clean hydrogen has been explored as a promising solution to help the operation of a low-carbon grid. This work seeks to evaluate the benefits of integrating a hydrogen production facility into an IES infrastructure from the perspective of operation flexibility. Specifically, a grid-connected IES that consists of a small modular reactor (SMR), a wind farm, an electrolyzer that produces hydrogen, a fuel cell that converts hydrogen to electricity, and a hydrogen storage tank, is modeled and studied. The IES components are modeled considering their suitability for performing both power system unit commitment and economic dispatch simulations, and in this study we focus on day-ahead simulations. The proposed IES configuration aims to leverage the low-cost surplus generation (from SMR or wind) to produce hydrogen that could be used in peak load periods or traded in the hydrogen market. The results on the NREL 118-bus system simulation show that the IES could help reduce the total production cost and renewable curtailment in the system operation.