The Technology Development Projects toward Hydrogen-based Society; Hydrogen Energy System Development; Business Model Establishment using Renewable Energy and Developments for a Large-scale Verification have been proceeded at Namie-Cho, Fukushima Prefecture by National Economic Development Office (NEDO), Toshiba Energy Systems, Tohoku Power and Iwatani since 2016.
For further expansion and reinforcement, they added new participants of Tohoku Electric Power Network and Asahi Kasei, and concluded a consignment agreement for an extended period for implementation effective until the end of February 2023.
Tohoku Electric Power Network out of the two newly added participants will be in charge of the adjustment of the demand/supply balance of the power system utilizing the power system control, while Asahi Kasei will be in charge of technological developments to reduce the maintenance cost of the water electrolyzer.
　The project adopts an hydrogen producing system of 10MW class (Max. output: 2,000Nm3/h, Rated amount: 1,200Nm3/h) of the alkali-type water electrolysis which was installed in the Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field (FH2R) opened in March 2020, so that it could contribute to the adjustment of the demand/supply balancing in the power system.
It takes advantage of the maximum extent of electricity from the renewable energy with a largely changeable output without use of any storage battery, and is being proceeded aiming to establish a clean hydrogen producing technology at a low cost.
With the participation of Tohoku Electric Power Network at this time, as they say, the research development is headed for upgrading of various control functions toward utilization of hydrogen energy system as a resource to adjust the demand/supply balance by means of adding the reverse power flow of solar electricity generation, based on the trend of renovation of electric power system or the market system of electric power.
　In November 2019 Asahi Kasei established a hydrogen generating system as a supplier of hydrogen producing equipment at the beginning. As the participation as a consigned company the company aims to reduce the cost of equipment through the optimized frequency of replacement and reviewing of structure and materials of electrolysis frame.
Asahi Kasei has so far implemented verifications of the system at the Soma IHI Green Energy Center of Soma City in the same prefecture and also at the H2herten (H2 user center) in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. As for the utilization of the MW class, FH2R is the first case.