Assessment of hybrid power plant operation including P2H in future energy markets

Utility-scale hybrid power plants (HPPs) consist of wind power, solar power, and battery storage, and are operated as a single power plant with a single grid connection. With the increasing share of renewable energy (RE) resources and sector coupling, HPPs with other energy vectors like heat and gas storage are also evolving rapidly. It is envisaged that demand for hydrogen (and other chemicals like ammonia, methane, methanol, etc.) will increase in the future owing to the requirement for electrification of various energy sectors. The hydrogen production using RE resources termed as Power-to-Hydrogen (P2H) is studied in this work. Combining P2H technology within HPP reduces the fluctuation from non-dispatchable production and reduces the amount of curtailment in the system similar to storage devices. Case studies performed at various sites in Europe show notable improvement in the techno-economic benefits of HPP with P2H.