Economic Analysis of Hydrogen Produced by Nuclear Power Considering Generation Peak Regulation

Abstract

Green hydrogen is a critical kind of energy helping tackle various energy challenges while the high fuel cost is a major barrier to its widespread application. Nuclear power is a kind of energy with high initial investment and low operating costs, providing a potential solution to decrease the hydrogen's fuel bill, especially considering the generation peak regulation demand of the grid with high renewable energy penetration. This paper investigates the economic feasibility of hydrogen production from nuclear power when they are assigned derating. First, the state of art and future trends of mainstream water electrolysis technologies are summarized and a Levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) model considering an investment, fuel cost as well as benefits of flexibility and emission reduction is proposed. Second, a joint operation strategy for a combined system of hydrogen and nuclear power which utilized excessive electricity for electrolysis when the power plant is assigned to peak regulation is designed. Finally, the economics of the combined system is analyzed by comparing the LCOH of green hydrogen with that of hydrogen from fossil fuels. The results show that the hydrogen produced by excessive nuclear power is hard to contend with that from fossil fuels under the current technical level and market mechanism, but will be very competitive either the electrolytic technology or the compensation mechanism is improved in the near future.