Impacts of day-ahead power market conditions on flexible grid-connected water electrolysis in Europe

Water electrolysis is a promising technology to decarbonise hydrogen production. The European Union is planning its integration to achieve ambitious climate goals. However, electrolysis costs need to decrease to be implemented at a large scale. A solution pointed out in the literature is the participation of water electrolysis facilities as a demand-side management tool. By optimizing day-ahead biddings, electrolysers could become competitive with other hydrogen production technologies. This master’s thesis contributes to the scientific knowledge through three objectives. In a first place, it aims to give a broad picture of the European day-ahead market landscape. To do so, eight European market areas are investigated (Belgium, France, Germany the Netherlands, Northern Italy, Southern Norway, Spain, and Western Denmark). Secondly, this master’s thesis evaluates the impact of day-ahead market conditions on flexible water electrolysis through an alternative definition of the Levelized Cost of Hydrogen in Europe. To achieve that, four price scenarios for future day-ahead markets based on historical data are built and applied Alkaline and Polymer Electrolyte Membranes Electrolysis. In total, three historical years (2017, 2020, and 2021) and three bidding areas (Belgium, Western Denmark, and Southern Norway) are selected. Lastly, this document evaluates the impact of using Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average day-ahead price forecasts on the Levelized Cost of Hydrogen. It is demonstrated that low prices, as well as the high capacity factor of the electrolysers, are necessary to reach higher profitability. Simultaneously, at comparable mean day-ahead price levels, high volatility improves the water electrolyser’s profitability. Polymer Electrolyte Membranes Electrolysis is also demonstrated to be the most cost-efficient technology. Finally, ARIMA price forecasts do not significantly affect the Levelized Cost of Hydrogen.