Economic factors, hydrogen production

With respect to a large-scale hydrogen production, nuclear power can play a significant role if used as a provider of electricity in the electrolysis process or as a provider of high-temperature heat in fossil fuel conversion. An introductory option would be the use of cheap surplus electricity. Production of hydrogen as a bulk energy carrier is by a factor of about 2 too expensive compared with the today s commercial business of natural gas and oil, however, the trend to include external effects into the energy cost may help to achieve economic attractiveness [2]. 

The electricity production costs estimated in H2Sim are the levelized costs of electricity over the life of the plant. LCOE often are used as an economic measure of electricity costs as they allow for comparison of technologies with different capital and operating costs over time, as well as different construction times, capacity factors, and plant lives. The LCOE methodology is identical to that used for calculating hydrogen production costs [Equations (l)-(3)]. 

Table 3.7 Hydrogen production methods environmental, economic and scaling factors.

Granovskii, M., Dincer, I., Rosen, M.A. 2007. Greenhouse gas emissions reduction by use of wind and solar energies for hydrogen and electricity production Economic factors. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 32,927-931. 

As previously discussed, the utility costs of a hydrogen plant are among the most important economic factors in determining the overall production cost of hydrogen. Simulation models were built for both the Old Style and Modem plants to calculate utility costs. The Old Style plant utilities are based on a simulation model built to reflect t3 ical plant performance. The Modem plant utilities are based on a simulation model for the design of a t3 ical new plant. Table 10 shows the utilities and utility cost of hydrogen for each plant. 

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