Sea wave energy to produce Hydrogen for public transport in Trapani (Italy)

Abstract

The coupling of renewable energy and hydrogen technologies represents in the mid term a very interesting way to match the tasks of increasing the reliable exploitation of wind and sea wave energy introducing clean technologies in the transportation sector. This paper presents a feasibility study of two plants for the production, storage and distribution of hydrogen for Public transportation facilities in the West Sicily. In these plants the energy needs for the process is generated by a wind farm and/or a sea wave farm. All the buses will be equipped with a fuel-cell. A first economic analysis is presented together with the assessment of the avoidable greenhouse gas emissions during the operation phase. The scenarios addressed permit to correlate the demand of urban transport to renewable resources present in the territories and to the modern technologies available for the production of hydrogen from renewable energies. The study focuses on the possibility of tapping the potential renewable energies potential (wind and seawave) for the production by electrolysis of hydrogen. The use of hydrogen would significantly reduce emissions of PM10 and greenhouse gases in urban districts under analysis. The procedures applied in the present article, as well as the main equations used, are the result of previous applications made in different technical fields that show a good replicability [1]–[7]