Demand response potential of green hydrogen production in the green energy transition in Finland

Hydrogen can be produced with low emissions by water electrolysis utilizing low emission electricity. This green hydrogen may be used in industrial processes which are otherwise hard to decarbonize. This study considered the green hydrogen demand in Finland in the future, including current hydrogen use by industry and presuming steel production to convert producing steel with green hydrogen. It was examined how the electrolyzer capacity and hydrogen storage size affected their capability in demand response operation to limit the required dispatchable generation capacity, generated energy, and carbon emissions in the energy system. Results presented that, compared to constant hydrogen production, the demand response was able to reduce the dispatchable capacity by 1.54 GW and the generated energy significantly, up to $4.05 \mathrm{TWh} / \mathrm{a}(49 \%)$, by increasing the utilization of other generation sources, mainly wind and solar power. In an electrified energy system, the demand response was able to reduce carbon dioxide (CO<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf>) emissions up to $1.2 \mathrm{Mt} \mathrm{CO}_{2} / \mathrm{a}$ ($18 \%$). Moreover, the electrolyzer capacity was more important than the hydrogen storage size, and a larger storage resulted in greater reductions only with a greater electrolyzer capacity. Compared to today, a wider electrification of the energy system reduced the total emission up to 72%.