It has become increasingly easier and cheaper to install solar panels on building roofs in recent years – so more and more households, businesses and communities are now benefiting from generating their own electricity.
Owners, on the other hand, have so far found it a challenge to derive the full benefit from electricity production: selling unconsumed electricity is not necessarily the best option given falling buy-back rates. In addition, photovoltaic (PV) systems only produce energy during daylight hours.
If there's nobody home or if less electricity is needed at times, selling energy to the grid at a low rate means that this energy is essentially wasted – and it can even result in shortages! Without suitable energy storage, the energy needed in the evenings, at night and in the mornings has to be purchased at peak prices – a less than ideal situation in view of the current cost of energy.
Yet energy-storage solutions are on the increase – and some of them use green hydrogen.