Hydrogen and Hydrogen-Rich Fuels: Production and Conversion to Electricity

Hydrogen has been proposed as an energy carrier in storage systems, fueled by excess electricity from volatile power production and re-electrified in times of electricity shortage. Unfortunately, these storage systems suffer from fairly poor return efficiencies. There is however a multitude of other production methods and usages that not seldom are intermixed with storage, creating possibilities for hydrogen as an attractive energy carrier. In many cases, hydrogen is mixed with other species. A brief introduction of possible hydrogen production methods and ways to convert hydrogen into electricity are presented. Emphases are put on comparing electrochemical methods (fuel cells and electrolyzers) to more traditional methods, mainly turbine-based power production.