Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Demo4Grid (Demonstration of 4MW Pressurized Alkaline Electrolyser for Grid Balancing Services)

Teaser

The 21st century is dedicated to the energy revolution. The European Union wants a 27% reduction in CO2 emissions by the year 2030. Imported energy, such as oil, coal and gas should be gradually replaced by solar energy, hydropower and wind power. However, this leads to a...

Summary

The 21st century is dedicated to the energy revolution. The European Union wants a 27% reduction in CO2 emissions by the year 2030. Imported energy, such as oil, coal and gas should be gradually replaced by solar energy, hydropower and wind power. However, this leads to a partial overloading of the power grids. Green hydrogen is the solution to this problem.

Within the framework of the EU project Demonstration for Grid Services, europeans largest single-stack alkaline-pressure electrolysis plant will be set up and tested in Tyrol to regulate the regional electricity network, generate green hydrogen and supply foodstuffs with CO2-free energy.

The plant, which is to be supplied by IHT from Switzerland, is being implemented in Völs, near Innsbruck by MPreis, a regional food producer and trader. The Green Energy Center Europe in Innsbruck, is the catalyst for this project, financed by the EU and Switzerland, in which the targets will be hit in the green energy future.
Over the next five years, the protagonists and European project partners will work responsibly and jointly to make regional resources available for the heat supply and mobility of tomorrow.

The main aim of project Demo4Grid is the commercial setup and demonstration of a technical solution utilizing “above state of the art” Pressurized Alkaline Electrolyser (PAE) technology for providing grid balancing services in real operational and market conditions. The final goal is to provide grid balancing services to the transmission system operator APG (primary and secondary balancing services), to participate in TIWAG’s intra-day and spot markets to generate cost-competitive hydrogen as well as to use surplus hydro-power energy from a station currently near to the electrolysis plant.

In order to validate existing significant differences in local market and grid requirements Demo4Grid has chosen to setup a demonstration site in Austria to demonstrate a viable business case for the operation of a large scale electrolyser adapted to specific local conditions that will be found throughout Europe. To achieve that, Demo4Grid will demonstrate at this demo site with particular needs for hydrogen as a means of harvesting RE production:

- a technical solution to meet all core requirements for providing grid balancing services with a large scale PAE in direct cooperation with grid operators,
- a market based solution to provide value added services and revenues for the operation strategy to achieve commercial success providing grid services and those profits obtained also from the hydrogen application.

DBC (Diadikasia Business Consulting S.A., Greece), IHT (Industrie Haute Technologie S.A., Switzerland), FHA (Fundación Hidrógeno Aragón, Spain), INYCOM (Instrumentación y Componentes S.A., Spain), MPREIS (MPREIS Warenvertriebs GmbH, Austria) and FEN-SYSTEMS (FEN Sustain Systems GmbH, Austria) are the partners of the Demo4Grid project.

The electrolysis plant will be installed in Völs near Innsbruck. As of 2019, the energy plant will be built and operated in the facilities of MPREIS. IHT is building an alkaline pressure electrolyser with a maximum power consumption of 4 MW for the project and will operate it together with INYCOM, which develops a remote control centre for advanced maintenance and smart operation. In parallel, MPREIS, end user, will supervise operation and integration in their facilities, DBC and FEN are leading exploitation and commercialization activities to explore replication of the project, FHA is in charge of dissemination and communication of results and DBC coordinates and manages DEMO4GRID, being the link with the European Commission.

Work performed

PAE development
Key points achieved and next steps:
- HAZOP and SIL assessment carried out and results shared between the partners and integrated in the engineering documents
- P&IDs finished and agreed between partners. Some specifications have been included to increase overall system performance
- Lay-out progress to start with building construction at MPREIS site
- 3D model design started which will be finished once all equipment is finally ordered
- Bill of Material almost finished (still some pending quotations to be received from some suppliers). Procurement process to start in coming months.
- Engineering documents (PFD, P&IDs, HAZOP, SIL, etc) to be sent in advance to TÃœV Austria for a prior design assessment
- Planning of manufacturing process
- Control logic of the PAE and other subsystems to be validated by IHT and MPREIS for further implementations in the BPCS.
- Safety Instrumented Function of SIS to be validated by IHT and MPREIS
- Final specifications to be delivered by IHT (PAE instrumentation) and MPREIS (selection of controllers for peripherals) for INYCOM to finalize the design of the control cabinet.

Demo site preparation
In November 2018 a new location was identified in the north of the MPREIS production facilities. The site is located at two plots of lands. Negotiations with the two landowners have been successful and an agreement was signed in January 2019.Summarizing the location development of this project it must be stated, that prejudices towards hydrogen as dangerous medium and the prospect of lucrative long-term lease contracts for landowners were substantial hurdles in identifying and contracting a suitable location. These were the two main reasons that made negotiations with the landowners time-consuming and challenging. The failed negotiations and the repeated planning obviously had negative effects on the project schedule. Thus, the location development must be pointed out as a main process delay in Demo4Grid in order to help future projects to avoid multiple re-planning. The next step is to obtain all permits needed and to build-up the facilities.

Since February 2019, permits obtaining procedure is active. The site is dedicated farmland and a status change procedure was initiated by the community council of Völs and involves Tyrolean state authority approval for the land to be converted to industrial use property. Next to that, the location is adjacent to a creek which itself is protected by nature protection law. A nature law compliance procedure has also been initiated. Preliminary discussions show that a feasible solution can be achieved in both procedures.

Finally, the communication and dissemination plan of the project was elaborated. The CDAP is aimed to ensure the impact of the project, at every level and with different focus of interest of the project results. The 2nd update of the CDAP includes now all the activities which are actually running and shows the additional achievements to the previous version. The great finding of the past project year was the stakeholder and shareholder processes had to influence and fertilize each other in order to cause not a crash of the project. Due to several circumstances a post-processing of the project became necessary and more budget has to singed by the shareholders of MPreis. This led to the need for a new setup of the external dissemination and internal awareness process. Dissemination and market-development efforts led by FEN-system have been successfully establishing a link to Tyrolean governance and administration.

The Demo4Grid website, which has been online by November 2017, provides a clean homepage with few key facts to spark the visitor’s interest.

Final results

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Website & more info

More info: https://www.demo4grid.eu/.