Although the percentage share of renewable energy in the global energy landscape is increasing rapidly and consistently breaking records for annual installation, there is still a need for tripling up of renewable energy capacity by 2030.The costs and prices of renewable energy
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Although the percentage share of renewable energy in the global energy landscape is increasing rapidly and consistently breaking records for annual installation, there is still a need for tripling up of renewable energy capacity by 2030.The costs and prices of renewable energy are declining year by year, this is one of the key reasons for the shrinking of profits for renewable power developers(RPDs). Different strategies can be adopted by the renewable developers to increase revenues like improving financing costs, making multiple revenue streams for individual renewable assets etc. This creates an opportunity for P2X technologies, which are becoming popular due to their ability to facilitate the integration of different energy sectors like electricity and hard-to-abate sectors.
The design of a Hybrid power plant(HPP) is a complex problem that combines different assets to maximize the value of the power plant. Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark(DTU) are in the process of developing an open-source tool called HyDesign. According to desktop research, it was understood before HyDesign that no other open-source HPP sizing tool in the market could size and optimize the P2X designs. The purpose of this thesis study is to analyze how can RPDs improve their economic value by coupling with green ammonia(GNH3) production using HyDesign. The quantitative data is collected through the literature research and qualitative data is collected through attending various conferences and industrial events.This study models the most prominent and proven technology, which existed for more than a century now called the Haber Bosch process. Around 30+ industrial professionals were interviewed to entrepreneurially validate TUDelft's patented methodology of the Green Haber Bosch process. These interviews also provided reliable qualitative data for this study.
Since there is no reference, open-source green ammonia model, modelling checks were developed in this study to verify the functioning of the model and increase confidence in the reliability of the results. Site selection hypothesis was also made for hybrid renewable power plants. Evaluation results depict that the revenue of HPP+GNH3 is more than the HPP. However, various financial metrics were more for the HPP than HPP+GNH3, this is due to the huge technology costs of the GNH3 plants and the lack of economies of scale of such new plants.
Sensitivity analysis is performed in this study to analyse value addition and its source for improving various financial metrics of HPP+GNH3.Increasing RE resource capacity will improve financial metrics. Increasing electrolyser capacity or battery capacity will also improve a few of the financial metrics but not to the extent of increasing solar and wind capacities .
The study finds that building a large-scale HPP+GNH3 system is beneficial for RPDs and to society, which yields better financial benefits and more green ammonia production, which can be used in many hard-to-abate sectors.