Long-term power-to-gas potential from wind and solar power: A country analysis for Italy

Challenges related to variability of renewable energy sources (RES) recently arose in many countries and several solutions based on energy storage were proposed; among them, a promising option is Power-to-Gas (P2G), able to recover excess and unbalanced electrical energy. In this work, an assessment of long-term P2G potential is performed on a country scale, based on the analysis of electrical system historical data series, rescaled in order to consider the evolution of load and installed wind and solar capacity. In a long-term perspective, it is assumed the complete exploitation of the technical potential of the RES, which represents an upper deployment boundary with current technology. Once satisfied the electric load, residual energy to the P2G system and hydrogen production are calculated on a hourly basis; P2G installed capacity is a consequence of the assumed target on minimum operation on a yearly basis. The Italian case is analyzed, evidencing that the recovered excess energy from RES could substitute nearly 5% of current natural gas consumption or about 7% of national fuel consumption when used for hydrogen mobility. A range of options and a sensitivity analysis on assumptions is presented, showing scenarios with up to 200 GW of installed RES and a 50% additional load with respect to current one. In addition, the extension of the model to a zonal grid structure evidences the impact of transmission lines saturation that may increase gas production up to 50%. Results are compared with the German case, considered in a previous work, evidencing differences due to the diverse energy production mix.