Nuevos Negocios

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International Professional Master in Management of Eco-Innovation 2011-2012
Module M2: Science & Technology – Evaluation – INDIVIDUAL ESSAY

Hydrogen as a solution of power grid unreliability

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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The objective of thepresent essay is to focus in Hydrogen systems as an eco-innovative contribution to avoid power intermittence in the power grid, taking into account and integrating the electric power life cycle: Production, transmission, distribution, storage and the electric power final use.
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The world´s demand for energy is projected to be double by 2050 in response to population growth and the industrialization of developing countries (M.I. Hoffert et al., Nature 395, 891 (1998)). The power infrastructure is complex and it is a major challenge isto get everything working together without any setbacks. Creating a better balance of supply and demand of electricity in the overall power system would be a big step forward in improving efficiency and lowering electricity costs (Richard W. Asplund, Profiting from clean energy, 203 (2008)). Meanwhile, utilities are forced to maintain power generation capacity that can more than meet the demandseen during peak moments, even though that capacity goes to waste during periods of normal or low demand.
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Non renewable fuels are becoming more expensive, but a replacement for this kind of fuels takes time. Research and development is required before alternative sources can supply energy incost and quantities at competitive prices with fossil fuels.
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One promising alternative to fossil fuels is hydrogen (J.M. Ogden, “Hydrogen: The Fuel of the Future?”, Physics Today, vol. 55, No. 4, April 2002). Through its reaction with oxygen, hydrogen releases energy explosively in heat engines orquietly in fuel cells to produce water and heat as its only byproduct. Fuel cells are devices that use hydrogen as the main source, that along with oxygen from the air produce electricity. Advantages of the use of fuel cells are that they are not polluting or non-toxic, they have great efficiency and it is a silent technology, but their main drawbacks is that this technology is very expensive andperceptions on reliability, durability and safety has yet to be shown in the markets.
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“The gap between the present state of the art in hydrogen production, storage and use needed for a competitive hydrogen economy is too wide to bridge in incremental advances, it will take fundamentalbreakthroughs of the kind that come only from basic research (George W. Crabtree, Mildred S. Dresselhaus, and Michelle V. Buchanan “The Hydrogen economy”)”.
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The challenge is to find inexpensive ways to create Hydrogen in sufficient quantities from non-fossil resources. Nowadays there are many ways ofobtaining hydrogen; nevertheless, they evidence different problems that need to be solved.
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Power transmission is available because of the extensive power grids, however, in order for the hydrogen to be a suitable solution for improving the power flows, distribution systems must be developed....