Power-to-Gas
The world’s most innovative way to store and transport energy
Hydrogenics Corporation is pioneering “Power-to-Gas” – the world’s most innovative way to store and transport large quantities of energy. Power-to-Gas is the process involving the use of excess electrical power to produce hydrogen by electrolyzing water.
The hydrogen gas is then co-mingled with natural gas in the existing natural gas infrastructure, namely the gas pipeline network and its associated underground storage facilities.
By feeding this excess electrical power as hydrogen gas into the natural gas grid, the stored energy is not restricted to the site of generation. Separating generation and utilization offers grid operators more flexibility and thus a higher overall system efficiency.
The scale of the solution offers grid operators a significantly larger grid management tool compared to conventional solutions like pumped-hydro or compressed air energy storage.
The convergence of the electrical grid with the natural gas distribution network will allow grid operators to manage energy flow from electricity to gas and then from gas back to electricity, when and where these energy conversions are most beneficial to the power grids.
Benefits:
- Transporting energy via a gas pipeline is several times less expensive than transporting electricity
- The ability to perform fast regulation services
- Improved utilization of existing generating assets
- Ability to perform energy time arbitrage
- Ability to perform energy spatial arbitrage
- Offset of new electrical transmission requirements
- Increased grid flexibility
- Infrastructure for energy transmission, storage and distribution immediately available