Ricerc@Sapienza

The transition towards energy systems characterized by high share of weather dependent renewable energy sources poses the problem of balancing the mismatch between inflexible production and inelastic demand with appropriate solutions, which should be feasible from the techno-economic as well as from the environmental point of view. Temporal and spatial decoupling of supply and demand is an important element to be considered for the evolution of built environment, especially when creating sectorial level planning strategies and policies.

Hydrogen coming from renewable electricity is identified by energy policies as promising strategy due to its greening effect on power generation and its use as driver of a renewable fuel economy. The decrease in renewable electricity production costs as well as the balancing and power stability issues induced by the dramatic expansion of renewable energy installations drive the market and the policy to account for hydrogen as a solution. In this chapter, an overview of the Research & Development projects funded by the European Union in the field of solar hydrogen is presented.

In the last decade, the European Union promoted several directives dealing with strategies and methodologies pertaining to buildings energy demand reduction. To accomplish fixed targets, a different design philosophy has to be adopted for new buildings construction. Additionally, RES (Renewable Energy Sources) have to be integrated as much as possible and non-invasive refurbishment interventions, matching architectural constraints for existing buildings have to be considered.

This paper deals with the seasonal energy and environmental characterization of a commercial micro gas turbine fueled with hydrogen enriched natural gas blends, to implement a Power-to-Gas option. When the renewable electricity excess occurs in a hybrid system, that energy can be converted into hydrogen to increase micro-turbine environmental performance. The experimental approach consists of testing on field that device at rated and partial load over the hot and cold seasons.

The share of electrical energy hailing from renewable sources in the European electricity mix is increasing. The match between renewable power supply and demand has become the greatest challenge to cope with. Gas infrastructure can accommodate large volumes of electricity converted into gas whenever this supply of renewable power is larger than the grid capacity or than the electricity demand. The Power-to-Gas (P2G) process chain could play a significant role in the future energy system.