Brouwer's hydrogen energy project draws new attention

AirUCI faculty Jack Brouwer's decade long research into storing energy using hydrogen is attracting new attention.  HIs 2016-2020 campus demonstration project, in conjunction with the Southern California Gas Company, was a success. it made renewable hydrogen from solar power using an electrolyzer, then took that renewable hydrogen, injected it into our natural gas grid, then delivered it through our natural gas grid to a natural gas combined cycle plant to make partially decarbonized electricity from it.
 
The energy industry’s interest in using power-to-gas as a storage vehicle comes as a way of achieving a grid that runs predominantly on intermittent renewables, yet will require large amounts of storage to smooth out supply for when the sun isn’t shining and wind isn’t blowing.  "If you need to store terawatt hours of energy — which is what the grid will need if it’s 100% renewable — it’s going to be way cheaper to store it in the form of hydrogen," Jack said.  Read the article