Power to Air-transportation via Hydrogen

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the integration of power-to-hydrogen systems for fueling next-generation aircraft, focusing on cost, emissions, and wind curtailment impacts, using a case study of Dublin-London flights and Irish grid simulation.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for evaluating power-to-hydrogen for aviation, specifically assessing its effects on the power grid and emissions for future aircraft.

Findings

Hydrogen-powered aircraft can significantly reduce carbon emissions.

The proposed P2H integration impacts wind curtailment and grid costs.

Simulation shows feasibility of using Irish grid for hydrogen fueling.

Abstract

This paper proposes a framework to analyze the concept of power to hydrogen (P2H) for fueling the next generation of aircraft. The impact of introducing new P2H loads is investigated from different aspects namely, cost, carbon emission, and wind curtailment. The newly introduced electric load is calculated based on the idea of replacing the busiest international flight route in the Europe, Dublin-London Heathrow, by hydrogen fuel-powered aircraft as a high potential candidate for the next generation of air travel systems to cope with the ambitious targets set in Europe Flight Path 2050 by the Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE). The simulation is performed on a representative Irish transmission network to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solution.