Ramea Island Wind/Diesel/H2 Power to Gas

Problem: Ramea Island lies off the south coast of mainland Newfoundland and Labrador. Ramea is home to several hundred people who are provided with electricity by Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro (NLH), a Nalcor Energy Company. Historically, diesel generators were the only means of producing electricity. In an effort to reduce the dependance on diesel and to explore similar opportunities in other remote communities, NLH undertook a demonstration project to harvest some of the considerable wind energy available on Ramea. A wind farm was constructed adjacent to the diesel generating plant to demonstrate that a wind/diesel power plant could support the electricity needs of the community. Subsequently, in 2008, NLH initiated a project to demonstrate electric energy storage using hydrogen as the storage medium, and thereby building one of the first hydrogen “Power to Gas” systems in Canada.

Solution: As Subject Matter Experts and Owner’s Engineers we designed the entire integrated system. A “marine hardened” water electrolysis plant powered by wind, combined with a three vessel tank farm to store 120 kilograms of gaseous hydrogen which in turn provided fuel to power a 250 kW generator.

Electrolyzer

Hydrogenics Hy-Stat A-30

Capacity: 20 cubic meters per hour

Delivery pressure: 25 barg

Storage

Steelfab Industries

3 x 28,000 water litres

Settled pressure: 17 barg

Capacity: 120kg (total)

H2 ICE Genset

Hydrogen Engine Centor

5 generators at 65Kw each

Ramea Island. Retrieved from: The Globe and Mail