REMOTE's Final Event 

The 30 of June 2023 marked the end of our project REMOTE that demonstrated the use of hydrogen and fuel cell based power-to-power system(P2P) for the integration of Renewable Energy sources in off-grid or microgrid applications. Within the project, three DEMO sites were established and operated in Norway, Greece and Spain with the last one becoming fully operational in May 2023.

The project which is coordinated by Politecnico Di Torino, ended on a very positive note with a site visit to the last site in Gran Canaria, Spain by the entire project consortium as well as a representative from the Clean Hydrogen Partnership that funded the project. The P2P system was installed in a cattle farm from Grupo Capisa in the site of La Aldea de San Nicolas. The area is called an “island within an island”, as it is difficult to reach and it is surrounded by UNESCO protected areas that prevent the expansion of the electricity grid. The cattle farm therefore had to rely until now on polluting diesel generators to cover the peaks in electricity demand coming from their expanding milking facilities. As a result of the REMOTE project, an electrolyser system of 80kW was installed that can store renewable electricity produced by the Solar PV system at times of low demand in the form of hydrogen. Up to 50kg of hydrogen can be stored which is re-converted to electricity through the use of a 100kW Fuel Cell system provided by Ballard when there are peaks in the electricity demand that cannot be covered by the grid.

The system was integrated by one of the partners of the project INYCOM who has also developed an easy to use system interface that can be used directly by the farm owners to operate the system. They are also able to control and monitor the system remotely in case of faults or other necessary system interventions.

The farm also developed a nice classroom looking space in the building overlooking the system where visitors and students  from the nearby Instituto Tecnologico de Canarias that was also involved in the site integration can learn about the technology.

The farm owners were very excited with the solution that was provided by this hydrogen and fuel cell P2P system that proved the technology readiness of such a solution solving a real-life problem for energy security in remote locations.

The visit was followed by a workshop the following day that took place as part of the ECOS conference 2023 and presented the results, findings and lessons learned from the unique experience of designing and operating hydrogen-based systems for power supply in remote areas. In addition, the role of hydrogen from an economic and environmental perspective was also investigated and presented.

Have a look at the recording here: 

https://youtu.be/lUzvcphKuyU