The government has been told it must kickstart the construction of large-scale hydrogen storage facilities to deliver on the ambitions of having all electricity come from low carbon sources by 2035 and reaching net zero by 2050.
The Royal Society explored a range of options for storing surplus electricity generated from wind and solar. From this, it determined large-scale electricity storage is key to mitigating variations in wind and sun, adding that storing most of it as surplus hydrogen in salt caverns is the cheapest, most cost-effective way forwards.
Assuming that the demand for electricity in Britain by mid-century will be around 570TWh per year, it noted in principle most of it could be met by wind and solar supported by hydrogen, with some small-scale storage that can respond quickly. Based on this, it found this would call for a hydrogen storage capacity of 60-100TWh, depending on the level of wind and solar supply.
It assessed a scenario where demand is met by wind and solar supported by hydrogen storage, along with 15GW of batteries, as a baseline against which other operations were then assessed. It found that assuming low assumptions (£30/MWh) for the costs of storage and wind plus solar power it would cost around £52/MWh in 2021 prices with a 5% discount rate, rising to £92/MWh for high cost assumptions (£45/MWh) with a 10% discount rate. If all storage were supplied by ammonia only, costs would be £5/MWh higher, with it unlikely any other form of storage could meet the needs all on its own.
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