Energiforsyning i Arktis – hvilken vej vælger Grønland? - Artek ...

Storage of renewable energy through
hydrogen in Greenland
Jens Henrik Nielsen 1* , Louise Johansson 1 & Mikael Sloth 2
1 Nukissiorfiit, Greenland
2 H2 Logic A/S, Herning, Denmark
* Speaker, e-mail: jeni@nukissiorfiit gl
Abstract
The national energy company of Greenland, Nukissiorfiit has started an exciting project, called
H2KT, hydrogen (H2) to Nukissiorfiits headquarter (HKT) This may enable increase in the use of
renewable energy in Greenland The H2KT-project has in February 2010 established a hydrogen
and fuel cell plant in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, in order to demonstrate and gather the first
operation experience of using the technology for storage of renewable energy
Resumé
Grønlands nationale energiselskab Nukissiorfiit har igangsat et spændende projekt, H2KT – Brint
(H2) til Nukissiorfiits hovedkontor (HKT) Dette kan bidrage til på sigt at øge mængden af
vedvarende energi i Grønland Gennem H2KT-projektet har Nukissiorfiit i februar 2010 etableret
et brint- og brændselscelleanlæg i landets hovedstad Nuuk Dette for at demonstrere og opnå
erfaring i anvendelse af teknologien til energilagring
1. Introduction
Lately Greenland has achieved a significant
attention in the climate debate This is mainly
because the effects of climate change are
particularly visible in Greenland in terms of
the drastic decrease of the ice coverage
Even though the climate challenges and the
effects in Greenland require global solutions,
the national energy company Nukissiorfiit has
initiated the H2KT project – Hydrogen (H2) to
Nukissiorfiit’s headquarter (HKT) – in order to
increase the use of clean renewable energy
locally This will also help Greenland to reduce
its dependency on polluting and increasingly
expensive oil commodities
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2. The energy situation today
About half of the energy – electricity and
heat – that Nukissiorfiit produces today are
based on hydro power The remainder energy
is produced using imported diesel fuel
Especially the smaller towns and settlements
are dependent on diesel based energy supply,
and many of them do not have the possibility
to establish hydro power or other types of
renewable energy in larger scale Further,
diesel energy production is also used as
reserve in the cities that are supplied from
hydro power today
Besides the significant emissions from use of
diesel, the dependency of imported diesel is a
challenge for Greenland in the long term The
considerable rise in oil price in 2008 resulted
in an increase of the diesel price in Greenland
and thus increased energy costs for the endusers
In long term, where the oil will be
scarce and expensive, this can become a
considerable challenge for the energy supply
in Greenland