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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Solar panel to generate Hydrogen


Photovoltaic solar energy is becoming popular as a source of clean energy and an alternative to fossil fuels to combat climate change. Though the initial cost is expensive people have started realizing the potential of PV solar as a real alternative to grid power, especially when they can export surplus power to the grid and earn some revenue. It is a source of income for potential investors as the energy cost keeps rising steadily. The cost of solar panels, batteries and inverters are slowly coming down as the systems get more popular and more competition is created in the market. However, during cloudy days or when the solar hours are less, the power generation by solar panels is considerably low. Moreover, the ‘power in tariff ‘ system is not available in many countries especially in developing countries. Therefore, energy storage becomes an issue. Lead acid batteries serve as storage devices for smaller applications but it becomes expensive for lager systems. Operation and maintenance, replacement and waste disposal are some of the issues with battery storage. Generating Hydrogen onsite using solar power and storing Hydrogen under pressure in a tank is the best method of storing solar energy. The stored Hydrogen can be used to generate power using a Fuel cell as and when we need power. However, the amount of energy required to convert water into Hydrogen using Alkaline Electrolyzer or Solid Polymer Electrolyzer is still high, averaging 5-7 kwhrs/m3.When you calculate the economics of Hydrogen storage versus battery storage using a computer modeling for a stand alone system, it is clear that Hydrogen storage is more economical and also guarantees an uninterrupted power supply using a Fuel cell. One US company has developed a Carbon doped Titanium oxide nanopowder visible light photo catalyst to generates Hydrogen using sun’s light energy. The company claims that it consumes only one third of the power consumed by PEM Electrolyzer or half of an Alkaline Electrolyzer.It can be easily installed at roof tops and it can generate Hydrogen even at one third of sunlight because it can effectively use short UV light and blue wave length of suns light because these energetic wavelengths penetrate cloud cover more effectively than the rest of sunlight. A 2mm modular solar panel can be installed on roof top or installed in multi-acre field installations. Even during the absence of sunlight the company claims it can use grid power to generate Hydrogen using its hybrid integral (MMO) Mixed metal oxide Titanium anode as efficiently as PEM Electrolyzer. While a PEM electrolyzer generates about 1.3kg Hydrogen from a power input of 100Kwhrs, this model can generate about 2.5kg Hydrogen using MMO + TiO2 anode and about 3.8kg using TiO2 alone. (Based on higher heating value of Hydrogen at 39.4 kwhrs/kg).The panel consuming 26.7kwhr power at 1.0Volt DC current at Anode can generate 1.25kg Hydrogen with Electrolysis electrical efficiency at 148%. This will make Hydrogen fuel a commercial reality because it will consume only 21.36 kwhrs of Dc power to generate 1 Kg Hydrogen. The generated Hydrogen can generate about 15 Kw power using a Fuel cell. This is an elegant solution to generate and store power using sun’s light than Photovoltaic power.

2 comments:

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Stacy said...

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