Technology, Systems, and Policy Challenges towards FutureHydrogen and Power Markets: Photocatalysis for Hydrogen Storage, Power System Trade-offs, and Green Hydrogen Policy

Abstract

The current transformation of the global energy economy towards a more sustainable, low-carbon society is dependent on the collective and coordinated advancements in technology, systems design, and policy and markets. These three tiers of systemic and economic energy advancement are highly interrelated; however, the technical expertise in each is largely separate. This dissertation addresses technical progress made in five studies across these tiers’ and discusses the need for knowledge exchange between them. First, improvements in the understanding of light delivery to, and plasmonic excitation of, heterogenous metal catalysts for the reaction of ammonia decomposition for hydrogen storage are demonstrated. A derivation of light scattering in catalytic powders was developed, demonstrating that bond-mode selective catalysis is possible with optical power as low as 100 mW. Further, plasmonic catalysis of ammonia decomposition on bi-metallic Ag-Ru catalysts showed an optically-enhanced reaction rate up to 1.6x in the presence of UV-Vis light, with a maximum reaction rate of 7500 μmol g−1s−1. Second, design tradeoffs in power system models are discussed. It is found through a critical review of power market models that future models need better representation of opportunity costs, operational constraints, revenue streams, and explore the effect of sub-hourly operational resolution. Next, tradeoffs in temporal granularity in generation expansion planning are studied by investigating the impact of the number of representative days and sub-hourly operational constraints (1-hr vs 5-min time steps) on new capacity decisions. It is found that new capacity decisions and resource utilization can deviate up to 23% and 13%, respectively, between scenarios with low and high temporal resolution. Last, a benefit-analysis framework and stochastic discounted cash flow model are developed to understand renewable hydrogen market and policy design, which are applied to study investment and production tax credits on a hydrogen electrolyzer investment. These policies are found to have investment risk reduction efficiencies of 27% and 33% per million $USD, respectively. This dissertation illustrates technical approaches used across technology, systems, and policy challenges in decarbonization, and emphasizes the importance of cross-discipline work in coordinating solutions across the clean energy transition.