Peaking strategies for the management of wind-H2 energy systems

In recent years, growing attention has been paid to the use of renewable resources to produce electricity. One of the main drawbacks of generating electricity through wind power is the randomness of input, which obviously results in a random output of energy. This means that peak output does not always coincide with peak demand. Nevertheless, demand drives prices, making output regulation essential. Thus, improvements in energy management aimed at satisfying demand and increasing profits need to include output regulation mechanisms. This calls for the introduction of new equipment for energy storage and new management strategies. This paper presents a simulation model, which incorporates the important equipment that compose the wind-H2 energy system (wind turbines, inverters, electrolysers, H2-storage tank, fuel cells,…) and the random elements of the stochastic environment in which the energy system evolves (wind speed, wind speed forecast error and electricity prices). The main contribution of the paper is to present and analyze a set of new proposed management policies named “peaking strategies”, which are based on the conversion of electricity into hydrogen during price troughs and the use of the stored hydrogen to produce electricity during the day's demand (thus price) peaks. We present a very flexible set of management policies with different levels of participation of the decision maker: some decisions can be made by the decision maker while leaving others to optimization processes. To achieve such a decision framework we break down the management policy into a set of decisions with different time horizon (strategic, tactical and operational decisions). ► Simulation model of a small-scaled hybrid wind-H2 energy system. ► Peaking strategies for managing the system are developed. ► News vendor approach is used to optimize the committed energy. ► Decisions are considered at strategic, tactical and operative level. ► The simulation model is applied to a real wind farm.