Ever wondered what happens when you mix water, electricity, and a whole lot of wind? No, it’s not a recipe for a stormy day at the beach – it’s a great formula for green hydrogen production. And, with our new wind turbine technology, it promises to be a needed secret sauce in our world’s clean energy cookbook.

The Rise of Green Hydrogen

Green hydrogen, produced through electrolysis powered by renewable electricity, is emerging as a promising solution for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors. Unlike gray or blue hydrogen, which rely on fossil fuels, green hydrogen offers a truly clean alternative with zero carbon emissions.

The potential applications of green hydrogen are vast:

• Industrial processes
• Transportation (especially long-haul and heavy-duty vehicles)
• Energy storage
• Heating for buildings

However, the production of green hydrogen is energy-intensive, requiring substantial amounts of renewable electricity to power the electrolysis process.

The Renewable Energy Challenge

To meet the growing demand for green hydrogen, we need a significant scaling up of renewable energy capacity. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for the wind energy sector.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), producing all of the needed green hydrogen would result in an electricity demand of 3600 TWh, more than the annual electricity generation of the European Union.

Wind Energy’s Role

Wind power could be well-positioned to meet this demand when it is able to make use of the unused wind that blows beneath the tall turbines in wind farms. These wind farms are situated in the windiest locations in the world and can often double or more their energy output with a layer of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) in their understories. This resource can generate large amounts of clean electricity and be the backbone for green hydrogen production. 

Wind Harvesters® offer a compelling solution for powering green hydrogen production. VAWTs can double or triple the energy output of the world’s windiest wind farms. If the energy goes to H2 gas, no new transmission lines and new land would be needed to produce the energy electrolysis demands. 

The Synergy of Wind and Hydrogen

The combination of wind energy and green hydrogen production creates a powerful synergy:

1. Modeling from Caltech and other universities predict the HAWTs in a wind farm can realize a 10% increase in their energy output with VAWTs installed beneath them. The vortices shed from the VAWTs draw faster moving wind from higher altitude toward the ground and into the rotors of the HAWTs.
2. Arbitrage: Hydrogen production can act as a flexible load, helping to balance the intermittency of wind power and increase the value of the energy produced.
3. Energy storage: Excess wind energy can be stored as hydrogen for later use.
4. Decentralized production: Wind-powered electrolyzers can enable on-site hydrogen production, reducing the need for new transmission lines.

Investing in a Cleaner Future

Wind Harvest’s technology for turbulent mid-level wind can increase the speed and magnitude at which the clean energy transition occurs. The company has developed advanced vertical-axis wind turbines that can significantly boost renewable energy production from the windiest wind sites in the world. Adding high energy using facilities such as green hydrogen plants to existing wind farms can be among the least expensive, fastest ways to bring large scale H2 gas projects to the market.