Greenland to Increase Share of Renewable Energy through Storage in Hydrogen

The national energy company of Greenland, Nukissiorfiit has started an exciting project, called H2KT that are to enable increase in the use of renewable energy in Greenland. The H2KT-project are to establish a hydrogen and fuel cell plant in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, in order to demonstrate and gather the first operation experience of using the technology for storage of renewable energy. H2 Logic A/S has been selected as supplier of the plant, after a competitive bid round, with planned start of operation by end of the year.

Global challenges – Local solutions

Lately Greenland have achieved a significant attention in the climate debate, onwards the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen later this year. This is mainly because the effects of climate change are particularly visible in Greenland in terms of the drastic decrease of the ice coverage.

Even though the climate challenges and the effects in Greenland require global solutions Nukissiorfiit has initiated the H2KT project in order to increase the use of clean renewable energy locally. This will also help Greenland to reduce its dependency on polluting and increasingly expensive oil commodities.

The energy situation today

About half of the energy – electricity and heat – that Nukissiorfiit produces today are based on hydro power. The remainder energy is produced using imported diesel fuel. Especially the smaller towns and settlements are dependent on diesel based energy supply, and many of them do not have the possibility to establish hydro power or other types of renewable energy in larger scale. Further diesel energy production is also used as reserve in the cities that are supplied from hydro power today.

Besides the significant emissions from use of diesel, the dependency of imported diesel is a challenge for Greenland in the long term. The considerable rice in oil price in 2008 resulted in an increase of the diesel price in Greenland and thus increased energy costs for the end-users. In long term where the oil will be scarce and expensive this can become a considerable challenge for the energy supply in Greenland.

Better utilization of renewable energy

It is obvious to increase the use of the significant potentials for renewable energy that Greenland holds, among others hydro power. Calculations have shown that Greenland have a theoretical hydro power potential enough to supply 70% of Europe with electricity. However increasing the use of renewable energy requires new technologies and opportunities for storing energy. Storage is needed to balance the seasonal fluctuations in energy consumption and to enable distribution of energy to cities and settlements without local potential for renewable energy production.

Future opportunities in hydrogen

The H2KT-project shall investigate the opportunities of using hydrogen and fuel cells as energy storage in Greenland. The idea is to use electricity in periods of excess hydro power to split water into hydrogen and store this. In periods with higher energy consumption, typically during winter time, the stored hydrogen is concerted to electricity and heat in a fuel cell. In future the hydrogen can also be distributed to cities and settlements where it is not possible to produce renewable energy.

In long term hydrogen and fuel cells may enable Nukissiorfiit to completely avoid use of diesel for energy production. Also hydrogen can be used as fuel for transport and with the tremendous hydro power potential in Greenland, export of hydrogen may also be possible in the future.

Experimental plant

The hydrogen and fuel cell plant that will be established at the Nukissiorfiit headquarter in Nuuk, are to function as an experimental plant giving Nukissiorfiit specific experiences in both production and use of hydrogen. The plant will produce hydrogen based on electricity from the hydro power plant in Nuuk, and the hydrogen will be used for supplying energy for the Nukissiorfiit headquarter. The plant is also to help increase the public awareness of hydrogen and fuel cells in Greenland.

The plant is supplied by H2 Logic and consists of a hydrogen electrolysis system that uses electricity to split water into hydrogen. The hydrogen is then stored for later use in a fuel cell where it is converted to electricity and heat. Waste heat from the hydrogen production and the fuel cell is used for local heating while the electricity is supplied to the grid or used in the Nukissiorfiit headquarter.

The plant also includes a compression and distribution system that enables storing of the hydrogen under pressure in distributable bulks. This way the hydrogen can be distributed to other cities and settlements in Greenland where it can be used for local energy production. The plant is also prepared for a future upgrade with a hydrogen refuelling station, enabling use of hydrogen as fuel for transport.