IEEE Power and Energy Student Branch Chapter Seminar | Hydrogen Pathways: Decarbonising the UK and Latin America by Prof Goran Strbac and Prof Enzo Sauma

The Power and Energy Society (PES) provides the world’s largest forum for sharing the latest in technological developments in the electric power industry, for developing standards that guide the development and construction of equipment and systems, and for educating members of the industry and the general public. Members of the Power and Energy Society are leaders in this field and they — and their employers — derive substantial benefits from involvement with this unique and outstanding association. Its mission is to “…be the leading provider of scientific and engineering information on electric power and energy for the betterment of society and the preferred professional development source for our members”; our Chapter executes this mission in the UK and Ireland region.

Imperial College London, PES Student chapter (including IEEE SB) together with UK and Ireland Power and Energy Society Chapter, UK and Ireland Power Electronics Society Chapter are cooperating to organise this IEEE seminar at the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Imperial College London.

Prof Goran Strbac and Prof Enzo Sauma will provide a detailed analysis of the current integration of Hydrogen projects into the UK and Latin America energy economies.

Topic 1: Hydrogen Integration in the UK by Prof Goran Strbac, Imperial College London

Achieving the UK’s long-term climate targets cost-effectively requires a coordinated approach to decarbonising both heat and electricity supply. Integrated and coordinated design of heat and electricity supply systems is likely to result in a lower low-carbon transition cost compared to a “silo” approach optimising each supply system in a decoupled fashion.

The potential benefits of deploying flexible hydrogen infrastructure in supplying both heat and electricity sectors at several billion pounds of savings in annual energy system cost. The transition to a low-carbon energy system would rely on various production technologies for green and blue hydrogen, including electrolysers, biomass gasification and reformers, e.g., Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) and Autothermal Reforming (ATR), coupled with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and negative emission technologies.

About the Speaker

Goran Strbac (Member, IEEE) is currently a Professor and the Chair of electrical energy systems with Imperial College London, London, UK. His research interests include the optimisation of operation and investment of low-carbon energy systems, energy infrastructure reliability, and future energy markets.

Topic 2: Challenges of Hydrogen Integration in the Chilean Power System by Prof Enzo Sauma, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

Chile, with a huge renewable energy potential, attempts to be one of the leaders in exporting renewable fuels to Europe. On the other hand, the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1184, supplementing Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council was published in the Official Journal of the European Union in June 2023. This regulation establishes a methodology, among other statements, describing specific rules for considering electricity taken from the grid as fully renewable to produce renewable liquid and gaseous transport fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBO).

In this talk, we showed the impact of on-grid ammonia production on the long-term expansion planning of the Chilean power system, aligning with European Union definitions of RFNBO for future exports. We propose a comprehensive model formulated as a Mixed-Integer Linear Program to minimize investment and operational costs, while considering several technical constraints. By modelling ammonia production as a partially flexible load, we explore its impact on the entire power system.

About the Speaker

Enzo Sauma (Senior Member, IEEE) received the BSc and MSc degrees in electrical engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (PUC), Santiago, Chile, and the PhD and MSc degrees in industrial engineering and operations research from the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. He is currently a professor with the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, PUC.

His research focuses on market-based transmission investments in restructured electricity systems.