Definition of selected business cases and scenarios

The aggregation of smaller scale, distributed renewable energy systems for the provision of grid services already exists in several European countries. There are reports on countries adapting to the market rules in order to comply with the harmonization efforts of the EU [5], thereby opening opportunities for water electrolysers to earn additional income from the provision of grid services. The water electrolyser, as a key technology of sustainable hydrogen production, can offer high operational flexibility for grid services such as frequency control and congestion management. Servicing those markets as a by-product, the WE can stack value that is relevant for bridging the gap towards market parity. This report identifies the best opportunities for the European grid service markets to be served by water electrolysers.Data is available for 25 European countries including Norway and Switzerland. 85 TSO grid services within 12 countries are identified as commercially and technically feasible candidates. With eight such cases a more detailed economic analysis is conducted. It was found that offering the water electrolysers’ flexibility to the grid service markets can reduce the levelized cost of hydrogen by approximately 10%.