i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 0 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 3 8 0 1 e3 8 0 5

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Short Communication

The future energy: Hydrogen versus electricity

O.V. Marchenko, S.V. Solomin*

Energy Systems Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, 130 Lermontov Street, 664033 Irkutsk, Russia

article info abstract

Article history: Theoretically there can be different ways of the green (carbon-free) energy development
Received 9 December 2014 aimed at providing sustainable development of humankind in the future, in particular
Received in revised form hydrogen economy or electricity economy. In this paper the processes of hydrogen and
20 January 2015 electricity production, conversion and storage are compared in terms of energy and eco-
Accepted 22 January 2015 nomic expenditure for each stage of these technologies. The assessment shows that the
Available online 14 February 2015 electricity economy proves more preferable in the case of short-term energy storage,
whereas the use of hydrogen is more beneficial in the case of long-term storage. This is
Keywords: indicative of the fact that the hydrogen economy and electricity economy can coexist in the
Carbon-free energy technologies energy of the future and each energy carrier can find its application area.
Hydrogen Copyright © 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights
Electricity reserved.
Energy storage
Energy cost

hydrogen by 2050e2100 may exceed the current level by tens

Introduction
Transition to the sustainable development of the human
civilization will inevitably require some change in the energy
mix, development and implementation of new energy tech-
nologies including those carbon-free to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions and restrain the global climate change caused
by the human impact on the environment [1e5].
The wide use of hydrogen, a universal, environmentally
clean energy carrier that has virtually unlimited resources for
its production can become one of the possible avenues for the
future energy development [1,5e13]. Long-term forecasts of
the world energy development [1e4] show that depending on
the expected level of energy consumption as well as other
conditions, especially constraints on the greenhouse gas
emissions, the production and energy-related consumption of
or even hundreds of times.
According to the concept of hydrogen economy, hydrogen
produced from water will gradually replace fossil fuels and
become the main energy carrier in the second half of the 21st
century [5,7]. To this end, it is necessary to solve many tech-
nical problems, which will ensure the safety of hydrogen
technologies, and improve the methods for hydrogen pro-
duction, storage and transportation.
The electricity economy concept represents an alternative
to the hydrogen energy [2,14]. According to this concept
virtually all demand for energy will be met by the single,
environmentally friendly and easy-to-use energy carrier, i.e.
electrical energy. The electricity economy concept suggests
the development of systems for electricity storage and trans-
portation, i.e. storage batteries, supercapacitors and super-
conductors. As in the case of hydrogen economy, it combines

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ7 3952 500646 448; fax: þ7 3952 426796.

E-mail addresses: marchenko@isem.sei.irk.ru (O.V. Marchenko), solomin@isem.sei.irk.ru (S.V. Solomin).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2015.01.132
0360-3199/Copyright © 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
3802 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 0 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 3 8 0 1 e3 8 0 5

well with large-scale development of nuclear energy and en- technology is compared with the system of electrical energy
ergy based on renewable energy sources, provides flexible conversion and storage (Fig. 1.) Energy carrier (electrical en-
energy supply, high level of security and reliability of energy ergy and hydrogen) successively passes through I compo-
systems, and possibility of unifying the technologies and nents; power of the i-th component e Ni, efficiency e hi (Fig. 2).
equipment in the sector of final energy consumption. From the energy conservation law it follows the relation-
Which of the two concepts will be implemented in reality, ship between the powers of the components
or do they both have a right to exist, and hydrogen and elec-
Niþ1 ¼ hiþ1 Ni ; i ¼ 1; 2; …; I  1 (1)
trical energy will occupy their specific niches?
Currently, along with the arguments in favor of transition and the total efficiency
to the hydrogen economy [5,6] there is an opinion on its
obvious inefficiency [14e16]. The main argument is the Y
I
h S ¼ hi : (2)
statement on its low total efficiency. In particular, the author i¼1
of [15] shows that the total efficiency of all the hydrogen
Let us define the relationship between energy carrier cost
technology stages (hydrogen is produced through electrolysis
at the input of component pi and output from it piþ1 as follows.
on the basis of renewable energy sources and is used as a fuel
Suppose that the system is created during a relatively short
for cars) is 19e23%, whereas the efficiency of similar electric
time period and then is operated with the constant capacity
system (the same electrical energy production using renew-
factor. Then, the cash flow Ei (the difference of benefits and
able energy sources and charge of the electric car battery) is
costs for the i-th component per time unit) and net present
69%.
value (NPVi) will be equal [9] to
In this connection, it is necessary to note that the efficiency
 
cannot always be used as a criterion for the comparison of pi
Ei ¼ piþ1  Ni h  mi ki Ni ; (3)
variants. In many cases (or rather in most cases) it is much hi
more important to have economic estimates which are not
presented in Refs. [14e16]. Besides, the indicated studies do ZTi
not consider the key parameter for the considered energy NPVi ¼ ki Ni þ Ei expð  stÞdt; i ¼ 1; 2; …; I; (4)
carriers, i.e. the time necessary to store them. It is clear that 0
electrical energy can be used directly for the production of
respectively, where h is the annual number of utilization
final energy and energy services with very high efficiency. And
hours, ki is the specific capital investment (per power unit), mi
here it surpasses hydrogen. Such a situation, however, occurs
is the specific constant costs (share of investments), Ti is the
only in the case where we need the final energy at the time of
lifetime of components, s ¼ lnð1 þ dÞ, d is the annual discount
its production. Meanwhile, to provide the autonomous oper-
rate.
ation of energy customer, energy production and consump-
The condition for the project effectiveness is non-
tion should not coincide in time. The difference can be tens of
negativity of the NPV value. In the case of a competitive
hours as a minimum. In this case the question arises: what is
more profitable to produce, transport and store: hydrogen or
electrical energy? Even more energy storage time can be
required in the energy systems including renewable energy Electrical energy Nuclear energy
sources with stochastic operating conditions (wind and solar
power plants). Normally, it is supposed that the autonomous
operation of such a system can be provided by accumulators
with a capacity allowing load supply during several days АС/DC АС/DC
converter converter
[9,17].
The goal of the present research is to compare the eco-
nomic efficiency of production and storage of energy in the
form of hydrogen and electrical energy, i.e. in fact to compare Electrolyzer
the hydrogen economy and the electricity economy. Consid-
eration is given to green (carbon-free) energy production
technologies which do not emit greenhouse gases into the Compressor Compressor
atmosphere (renewable energy sources and nuclear energy).

The calculation scheme Hydrogen tank Hydrogen tank

The research focuses on the hydrogen production from water

on the basis of green (carbon-free) electrical (electrolysis) or
Fuel cells Electric
thermal (thermochemical reactions) energy with subsequent accumulator Fuel cells
storage. Electrical energy can be generated by renewable en-
ergy sources of different types (wind turbines, solar, hydro, bio
power plants and others). Thermal energy can be produced by
a nuclear unit (high temperature gas cooled reactor). The Fig. 1 e Compared variants.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 0 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 3 8 0 1 e3 8 0 5 3803

Table 1 e Indices of technologies.

Specific Specific fixed Efficiency, Lifetime,
investment, costs, % of % years
$/kW investment
Business-as-usual (BAU) scenario
Converter 300 2 95 10
Electrolyzer 1500 3 70 10
Compressor 1000 2 90 10
Fig. 2 e The i-th component of the energy conversion Hydrogen tank 880a 1 95 10
scheme (i ¼ 1, 2, …, I). Fuel cells 2000 2.5 50 10
Accumulator 150b 5 85 10
Optimistic (OPT) scenario
Converter 250 2 95 10
Electrolyzer 740 3 77 20
market, producers will have to decrease the price of their Compressor 1000 2 90 10
product to the minimum value providing the project effec- Hydrogen tank 600a 1 98 20
tiveness, i.e. the price under which the NPV is close to zero. By Fuel cells 800 2.5 60 10
equating NPVi to zero we find the cost of energy carrier Accumulator 100b 3 90 15
(minimum price) at the output of the i-th component a
$/m3.
b
$/kWh.
pi ki
piþ1 ¼ þ ðCRFi þ mi Þ; i ¼ 1; 2; …; I; (5)
hi h

where
s
CRFi ¼
1  expð  sTi Þ
is the capital recovery factor [9]. Equation (5) makes it possible
to successively estimate a rise in the cost of the energy carrier
as it passes through the system components and compare the
final cost of energy for different variants.
The calculation of some components has specific features.
In literature, the specific capital investment in electrolyzer k
is usually given per unit of the consumed (electric) power. To
reduce the investment to the unit of the output power N, it
should be recalculated by the equation
k ¼ k =h:
Specific capital investment in the hydrogen tank kb is given
in US dollars per cubic meter of its actual volume. To reduce
this value to the dimension US$/kW required for equation (5),
we assume that the hydrogen tank volume should be such
that power N can be supplied during q hours (the value q will
be called power supply period). Then
∧  
P0
k¼ kq=C1 ; (8)
P1
characteristics of the basic scenario approximately corre-
(6) spond to the best modern types of the respective technology,
optimistic e to the forecast for the coming 15e20 years.
The specific capital investment in the modern electrolyzers
with power consumption above 100 kW lies in the range
1500e3500 US$/kW [9,18,19]. For the prospective electrolyzers
the value used in some publications is 740 US$/kW [9,20].
Specific capital investment in the voltage transformers (con-
verters) correspond to the data from Refs. [18], in compressors
e to the data from Refs. [20], fuel cells e [9,18,22e24], electric
accumulators e [24,25]. The assumed values of operating costs
and service life are in line with the recommendations from
Refs. [9,18e24], the efficiency values correspond to those
(7)
presented in Refs. [9,15,18,26].
It was supposed that the process of electrolysis consumes
electrical energy generated by some conditional power plant
with an efficiency of 37 percent and cost of 7 cent/kWh (basic
scenario) and 5 cent/kWh (optimistic scenario), whereas the
hydrogen cost at its production using nuclear energy is
5 US$/kg (basic scenario) and 2 US$/kg (optimistic scenario).
The total number of capacity utilization hours h ¼ 6000 h/
year.

where C1 ¼ 3,56 kWh/m3 is an energy equivalent of a cubic

meter of gaseous hydrogen under normal pressure P0, P1 is
pressure in the tank. Table 2 e Efficiency, costs in accordance with energy
Capital investment in the electric accumulator k* (US$/ conversion stages and energy cost (electrolytic hydrogen,
kWh) is converted to the dimension US$/kW by the equation optimistic scenario, power supply period e 12 h).
Energy Overall Cost, Energy cost
k ¼ k* q: (9) conversion efficiency, cent/kWh
Cent/kWh $/toe $/kg
stage %
Power planta 37.0 5.0 5.0 583
Technical and economic indices of the Converter 35.2 1.0 6.0 698
Electrolyzer 27.1 4.1 10.1 1173 4.0
technologies
Compressor 24.4 3.5 13.5 1577 5.3
Hydrogen tank 23.9 0.7 14.2 1657 5.6
Table 1 presents the characteristics of the hydrogen and Fuel cells 14.3 11.9 26.1 3042
electrical energy production and storage technologies for two a
Renewable energy source.
scenarios by the data from Refs. [2,9,18e26]. The
3804 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 0 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 3 8 0 1 e3 8 0 5

75
Тable 3 e Efficiency, costs in accordance with energy
H2-BAU
conversion stages and energy cost (nuclear hydrogen
production, optimistic scenario, power supply period e 12 h).

Energy cost, cent/kWh

Energy Overall Cost, Energy cost 50 E-BAU
conversion efficiency, Cent/kWh
Cent/kWh $/toe $/kg
stage %
H2-OPT
Nuclear 37.0 5.1 5.1 592 2.0
power plant 25
Compressor 33.3 3.3 8.3 971 3.3 E-OPT
Hydrogen 32.6 0.6 8.9 1040 3.5
Fuel cells 19.6 8.3 17.3 2012
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Power supply period, hours
Calculation results
Fig. 3 e Relationship between final electrical energy cost
Results of the calculation using equations (1)e(9) are pre- and power supply period. Electrolytic hydrogen
sented in Tables 2e4 for a short power supply period (q ¼ 12 h) production. Variants: Н2 e hydrogen, E ¡ electrical energy,
and in Figs. 3 and 4 for q ¼ 12 and q ¼ 120 h. The total efficiency BAU e business-as-usual scenario, ОPT e optimistic
of the hydrogen technology, when hydrogen is produced by scenario.
both electrolysis and using nuclear energy (14.3 and
19.6 percent, Tables 2 and 3), is considerably lower (by
1.5e2 times) than in the case of electrical energy technology
(31.6 percent, Table 4). Such a relationship takes place even further improvement may require more detailed research into
with prospective characteristics of hydrogen technology. This the said indices.
confirms the conclusion made in Ref. [15] about its lower en-
ergy efficiency. Meanwhile, the conclusion on lower cost
effectiveness of the hydrogen technology can be made only for
Conclusion
a short-term power supply period (to the points of intersection
of curves in Figs. 3 and 4): less than 100e110 h for electrolytic
Presently, there is no consensus on the potential use of
hydrogen (Fig. 3) and 50e80 h for nuclear hydrogen production
hydrogen in the future. Along with the arguments for the
(Fig. 4). This can be explained by the fact that when the time of
transition to hydrogen economy in prospect, there is an
energy storage rises, the costs of accumulator in the
opinion about its insufficient efficiency.
electricity-based system increase much faster than the costs
The paper presents a comparative economic analysis of
of hydrogen tank.
hydrogen and electricity production and storage (comparison
Thus, in the case of short-term energy storage it turns out
of hydrogen economy and electricity economy). The analysis
to be more preferable to use the electricity-based system,
is based on the existing and projected technical and economic
while in the case of long-term energy storage e the hydrogen
indices of the competing variants.
one. This means that hydrogen economy and electricity
The obtained estimates prove that the claims that the
economy can apparently coexist, and each energy carrier will
hydrogen economy is ineffective due to its lower efficiency are
find its niche of application. In short-term energy storage the
most effective energy carrier is electrical energy, and in long-
term energy storage e hydrogen (for instance, as a fuel for
75
peak power plants and heat supply systems and as an energy
Energy cost, cent/kWh

carrier that will be stored in renewable energy system oper-

ating under stochastic conditions [9,17,27]). It should be noted H2-BAU
that the obtained results are true only for presently available 50
technical and economic indices of the technologies and their
E-OPT
E-BAU

25
Table 4 e Efficiency, costs in accordance with energy
conversion stages and energy cost (electrical energy, H2-OPT
optimistic scenario, power supply period e 12 h).
Energy Overall Cost, Energy cost 0
conversion efficiency, cent/kWh 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Cent/kWh $/toe
stage % Power supply period, hours
Power planta 37.0 5.0 5.0 583
Fig. 4 e Relationship between final electrical energy cost
Converter 35.2 1.0 6.0 698
Accumulator 31.6 3.8 9.8 1138 and power supply period. Nuclear hydrogen production.
a
Variants: Н2 e hydrogen, E ¡ electrical energy, BAU e
Renewable energy source.
business-as-usual scenario, ОPT e optimistic scenario.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 0 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 3 8 0 1 e3 8 0 5 3805

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