Using clean cars as power plants: it can be done in the UAE. A detailed plan from Dr. Ad van Wijk
October 28, 2016 by Frank Wouters and Ad van Wijk
The combined engine capacity of the new cars we build in just one year is more than the entire electricity generation capacity in the world. If we power our cars with fuel cells, we can use them as clean power plants the 96% of the time we are not driving in them, generating all the electricity we need, at competitive costs, with zero emissions. Frank Wouters, Director of the EU-GCC Clean Energy Network, and Ad van Wijk, Professor Future Energy Systems at Delft University of Technology, show how this could be done in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
We are not using our cars very much in the UAE, nor elsewhere by the way. A quick scan on Dubizzle, the leading internet platform for used cars in the UAE, shows that we drive some 20,000 km per year. At an average speed of 60km/h, this means that we use our car less than 1 hour per day. The remaining 23 hours, or 96% of the time, our cars sit idle. In another context we would call that stranded assets.
Let’s assume that an average vehicle has an engine capacity of 100kW. More than 80 million cars are sold each year, which represents a capacity of 8,000GW. The combined capacity of all power plants in the world producing electricity amounts to 5,000GW, so each year we are adding more capacity in our car engines than we have installed to produce electricity. And we only use those cars 4% of the time, whilst power plants are used thousands of hours per year. Of course a car engine, as we have them now, doesn’t produce electricity, it only moves the car; but let’s look at fuel cell cars...snip
Cost
So all of this is technically feasible with present day technology and sounds promising, but what about the cost? Although hydrogen fuel cell cars are still more expensive than standard cars, there is no reason why they should be more expensive in the future, if we manufacture them at similar scale. So the main difference lies in the cost for the fuel. It requires 50kWh to produce 1 kg of hydrogen and since solar energy costs 2ct/kWh in the UAE, the energy cost to produce hydrogen is 1$/kg.
An electrolyser costs approximately $600 per kW nowadays. If we implement large scale projects such as proposed here, it is safe to assume an electrolyser of 1MW will cost $400,000 in a few years from now. The UAE has more than 2000 annual sun-hours, hence such an electrolyser coupled to a solar PV system would produce 40,000 kg of H2. Assuming a ten-year life and linear depreciation, this would add 1$ to the cost of the hydrogen. The overall cost of hydrogen in such a scheme in the UAE would hence amount to 2$/kg...snip
Towards a new paradigm
We have described a system, where hydrogen is produced from seawater and low-cost solar energy in the UAE, at a cost of $2/kg...snip
Read More: http://energypost.eu/using-clean-cars-power-plants-can-done-uae/
Our Car As Power Plant
I am very proud to announce the book Our Car as Power Plant, in which the crucial role that cars will play in our future energy infrastructure is further explained.
The full book Our Car as Power Plant can be downloaded for Free! (PDF) http://www.profadvanwijk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/our-car-as-power-plant-ad-van-wijk.pdf
Moreover, a comprehensive infrographic has been developed to visually show all the important aspects of this upcoming revolution. Check it out below! full size pic here: http://profadvanwijk.com/books/car-power-plant/
A Brilliant example of thinking outside the box. Kudos to Dr. van Wijk. Americans are too busy thinking about how to overthrow the next leader they don't like. So it's up to the van Wijks of the world.
Published on May 9, 2016
Prof. Dr. Ad van Wijk - Professor Sustainable Energy, TU Delft
Title: Our Car as Power Plant
Smart Cities Summit
Biography: Prof Ad van Wijk
Prof. Dr. Ad van Wijk (1956) is one of the most influential sustainable energy entrepreneurs and innovators in Europe. In 1984 he co-founded the sustainable energy knowledge company Ecofys, which eventually grew into Econcern. As chairman of the executive board he lead and developed Econcern into a company with 1200 people in more than 20 countries, sharing the mission ‘A sustainable energy supply for everyone’. Until its bankruptcy in 2009 as a result of the financial crisis. Econcern was the holding company of Ecofys, Ecostream, Evelop, OneCarbon and Ecoventures.
Econcern developed and marketed many new products and services in the field of sustainable energy. Examples include the 120 MW offshore wind farm Princess Amalia, several multi-MW solar farms in Spain, BioMCN (a bio-methanol plant in Delfzijl) which is the largest second generation biomass plant in the world, Sea Water Air Conditioning systems in the Caribbean(still under development), the Closed Greenhouse (an energy producing greenhouse) the console (an innovative and cheap support structure for solar systems), the Energy Mirror (visualizing energy consumption in buildings) and Quicc (an electric van).
Ad van Wijk achieved many important prizes for excellent entrepreneurship. Amongst others he was entrepreneur of the year in the Netherlands in 2007. In that same year he received the 2007 Amsterdam Private Equity Club Award. And in 2008 he was top-executive of the year in the Netherlands. He was member of several Supervisory Boards, amongst others Solland Solar Energy (A solar cell manufacturer) and BioMCN
Today, Ad van Wijk is a an independent sustainable energy entrepreneur, advisor and Professor in ‘Future Energy Systems’ at the Delft University of Technology. He is member of the Economic Development Board Rotterdam and of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities.
http://profadvanwijk.com/sample-page/biography/
في دولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة، الهيدروجين هو رقم واحد
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