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The promise of hydrogen economy has been pursued for a number of years as an alternative to fossil fuels. One roadblock of its realization has been high costs of hydrogen production and distribution . However, a recent development from Sweden showed that this does not have to be the case. It was demonstrated in several pilot projects that solar energy can be captured in Summer and used during long Winter months. The solution is based on using electricity from solar panels to produce hydrogen from excess sun light and then convert it to electricity in fuel cells.
This development has become possible by the combination of three existing technologies: renewable energy (wind/solar), hydrogen storage, and fuel cells. PEM fuel cells are best suited to use hydrogen to produce electricity. They can also operate in reverse, producing hydrogen from water. Thus, a single fuel cell unit can produce hydrogen in summer from excess sunlight and produce electricity in winter. The proposed solution alleviates the problem of creating hydrogen distribution infrastructure since all production and utilization of hydrogen happens on the same site.
A conventional battery storage solution can not be readily used to mitigate seasonal variation in sunlight since the discharge rate of batteries makes them impractical for long-term storage.
