Evaluation of Hydrogen production from wind energy in Mexico

Resumen

Hydrogen is key to expanding the use of renewable energy in multiple applications such as industry. Therefore, it is important to quantify the resources availability in each region due to its geographic dependence.
The objectives of this work were to identify the available areas to produce wind hydrogen in Mexico, to quantify the generation potential (Ton/km2 year) and to determine the production cost (LCOH). To these ends, the ArcGis Pro software was used, which allowed the processing of geospatial data of yearly average of wind speed (500 m x 500 m) at 100 m of height taken from the World Wind Atlas. Subsequently, geographical restrictions such as urban settlements, protected areas, water bodies among others, were established to determine the areas where wind energy harvesting is possible. The evaluation of hydrogen production was performed using map algebra. The results revealed that only in 22.38 % of the Mexican territory it is possible to produce wind hydrogen, generating up to 829 Ton/km2 year; this means that overall, Mexico could produce 154.77 MTon/year of H2 considering an electrolyzer efficiency of 75%. This capacity is 1.78 times greater than the global current hydrogen demand. The northern region has the largest available area for for wind energy harvesting. Additionally, it was found that the LCOH would range between 4.4 and 6.4 USD/kg considering a capital cost of 960 and 1,600 USD/kW for alkaline electrolyzer and PEM, respectively. These results lay the foundations for decision-making on the development of hydrogen technologies in Mexico.