The 21st century is dedicated to the energy revolution. The European Union wants a 27% reduction in CO2 emissions by the year 2030. Imported energy, such as oil, coal and gas should be gradually replaced by solar energy, hydropower and wind power. However, this leads to a partial overloading of the power grids. Green hydrogen is the solution to this problem.
Within the framework of the EU project Demonstration for Grid Services, europeans largest single-stack alkaline-pressure electrolysis plant will be set up and tested in Tyrol to regulate the regional electricity network, generate green hydrogen and supply foodstuffs with CO2-free energy.
The plant, supplied by SUNFIRE (IHT) from Switzerland, is being implemented in Völs, near Innsbruck by MPreis, a regional food producer and trader. The Green Energy Center Europe in Innsbruck, is the catalyst for this project, financed by the EU and Switzerland, in which the targets will be hit in the green energy future. Over the next years, the protagonists and European project partners will work responsibly and jointly to make regional resources available for the heat supply and mobility of tomorrow.
The main aim of project Demo4Grid is the commercial setup and demonstration of a technical solution utilizing “above state of the art” Pressurized Alkaline Electrolyser (PAE) technology for providing grid balancing services in real operational and market conditions. The final goal is to provide grid balancing services to the transmission system operator APG (primary and secondary balancing services), to participate in TIWAG’s intra-day and spot markets to generate cost-competitive hydrogen as well as to use surplus hydro-power energy from a station currently near to the electrolysis plant.
In order to validate existing significant differences in local market and grid requirements Demo4Grid has chosen to setup a demonstration site in Austria to demonstrate a viable business case for the operation of a large scale electrolyser adapted to specific local conditions that will be found throughout Europe. To achieve that, Demo4Grid will demonstrate at this demo site with particular needs for hydrogen as a means of harvesting RE production:
- a technical solution to meet all core requirements for providing grid balancing services with a large scale PAE in direct cooperation with grid operators,
- a market based solution to provide value added services and revenues for the operation strategy to achieve commercial success providing grid services and those profits obtained also from the hydrogen application.
DBC (Diadikasia Business Consulting S.A. Greece), SUNFIRE (IHT; Industrie Haute Technologie S.A. Switzerland), FHA (Fundación Hidrógeno Aragón, Spain), INYCOM (Instrumentación y Componentes S.A. Spain), MPREIS (MPREIS Warenvertriebs GmbH, Austria) and FEN-SYSTEMS (FEN Sustain Systems GmbH, Austria) are the partners of the Demo4Grid project.
The electrolysis plant has been successfully installed in Völs near Innsbruck. As of 2022, the energy plant has been built and operated in the facilities of MPREIS. SUNFIRE (IHT) successfully built an alkaline pressure electrolyser with a maximum power consumption of 3.2 MW for the project, while INYCOM developed a remote control centre for advanced maintenance and smart operation. In parallel, MPREIS, end user, supervised the operation and integration in their facilities, DBC and FEN led exploitation and commercialization activities to explore replication of the project, FHA was in charge of dissemination and communication of results and DBC coordinated and managed the project, being the link with the European Commission.
