Abstract
The current electrical grid regime is not optimized to include renewable sources of power generation such as wind and solar. Electrical storage, as of now, is primarily established through the short-term generation and demand-meeting consumption leaving much of the grid susceptible to inefficiencies and power loss during natural events that leave grids out of commission. Delineating a new type of long-term storage, a hydrogen fuel cell, would ensure a reliable source of power to the masses regardless of the physical and climatic geography. The MISO region provides a perfect case study to introduce the ideas of diverse energy generation and storage due to its wide-reaching services and its openness towards extreme weather situations. By conducting simulations using C++ over a three-year period, we investigated the possibilities of using a purely renewable energy portfolio (wind and solar), along with a mix of short-term battery storage and long-term hydrogen storage, to meet and exceed the hourly load requirements of the MISO region. The introduction of an arbitrary two-week polar vortex showed that using hydrogen as a storage conduit would allow uninterrupted power delivery during periods of intermittent/non-existent solar and wind. The diversity of short- and long-term storage and the capacity of renewable energy call for a new electrical grid paradigm to be developed in the coming years.
Recommended Citation
Henningfield, Jackson C.
(2021)
"Renewing the Paradigm: Simulating the MISO Region Electrical Grid Using Renewable Energy Generation with Implementation of Long-term Hydrogen Storage,"
Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy: Vol. 9:
Iss.
1, Article 5.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/mjpa/vol9/iss1/5