In 2020, the state’s grid manager, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), curtailed 1.5 million MWh, or 5%, of its utility-scale solar production.
Some 94% of all energy curtailed in CAISO was from solar production and as solar generation use increases on the back of California’s green ambitions, hydrogen can be used to capture and store that energy for peak use.
“If you could use the excess power in a way that produces hydrogen and then stores that hydrogen, or uses it for peaking purposes, you can capture more renewables, so hydrogen is a vehicle to extend the capacity to capture renewables and deploy them either by pushing them in to fuel cells or the chemical industry,” says Vice President of Clean Energy Innovations at SoCalGas Neil Navin.
SoCalGas, one of the largest gas utilities in the world that serves some 22 million people, or one in eight Americans, is developing what they say would be the U.S.’s largest green hydrogen energy infrastructure system, the Angeles Link.
The Angeles Link aims to deliver green hydrogen in an amount equivalent to almost 25% of the natural gas SoCalGas currently delivers by, among other things, converting up to four natural gas power plants to green hydrogen.
The figure is based on opportunities to decarbonize Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LAWP) power plants, the ports of LA and Long Beach, and converting vehicles associated with heavy-duty industries, says Navin.
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