Othersphere Explorer 101 - System optimization for electrolysis

Blog
5.13.2024

🏔 The challenge

Equipment sizing and operating strategy LCOH optimizations for hydrogen electrolysis plants are cumbersome and time-consuming. It can take days to weeks to get the data, with each optimization run often taking hours. This limits analytical efforts to a handful of potential sites, leaving many opportunities unexplored.

The result — sub-optimal capital allocation and higher risks, with countless missed opportunities.The difference between initial cost calculations versus hourly optimizations can be dramatic, and highlights location as a critical element of project success.

🛠 Our solution

Othersphere has revolutionized this process by combining the power of our underlying spatial economics platform with neural networks for dimensionality reduction and surrogate modeling.

Our global search engine now recommends pre-optimized projects in seconds, having already run an hourly optimization considering:

1) Hourly day-ahead wholesale power market pricing

2) Grid upgrade CAPEX (developed with a global leader in grid transmission engineering and equipment)

3) Grid fees associated with transmission connections

4) Variable stack efficiency by load, incorporating operational ranges

5) System economies of scale, as well as commercial and technical nuances between PEM and alkaline plants

6) Hourly carbon intensity data

7) Demand profiles and cost of storage

8) Co-located renewables CAPEX

9) High-spatial resolution hourly solar and wind capacity factor data

All of this is delivered through the Othersphere Explorer tool, which provides a novel, bottom-up view of potential hydrogen projects, evaluating key factors such as production costs, emissions, available offtakers, and fit with local surroundings.

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Original data source:

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The data provided herein is made available on an "as-is" basis, without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. The provider does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of the information. By downloading this data, the user acknowledges that the provider shall not be held liable for any errors, inaccuracies, or omissions in the data, nor for any damages, losses, or consequences arising from the use, misuse, or reliance on this data. The user assumes full responsibility for the use of the information provided and agrees to use it with caution and at their own risk.

Similar Posts

Manage the millions, and the trillions will look after themselves nicely paraphrases the key to industrial decarbonization investment.

We take this approach at Othersphere, modeling tens of billions of potential capital projects from the bottom-up, to help turn asset-level success into global-scale action. For each individual project permutation we assess key factors such as reachable offtake, site-specific grid fees and CAPEX, feedstock pricing / fundamentals, buffer storage requirements, real-world plant CAPEX and operating constraints, hourly optimization of electrolysis operations (if applicable), and much more.

This leads to hundreds of individual project permutations, which we assess at ~180 million individual sites across the globe 🌐, made possible by modern big data and AI.

A fascinating byproduct of this bottom-up work is a unique aggregated look into the fit of different technologies in different locations, which we’re excited to share today.

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If you would like to access the slides directly, please click here.

Are the cost ranges drawn from Othersphere Explorer different from other country-level levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) estimates?

Absolutely, as location-specific details on economics, emissions, and local human environmental factors make all the difference.

Typically project analysts must spend days/week/months gathering data and model projects one-by-one in order to assess the fundamentals of lower GHG #hydrogen, #steel, #datacenters, and so on. We make all of this available instantly, and constantly work with a range of leading energy and engineering firms to validate and refine our results.

What does this mean for hydrogen?

This is a particularly charged molecule 🥁and we seem to be entering the latest down-phase of market sentiment on hydrogen—a regular cycle driven by high potential 📈grinding against difficult execution 📉.

For many focused on lower GHG hydrogen production, at first glance our results may appear daunting, as the average cost difference between new approaches and incumbent supplies can be significant.

But on a site-by-site basis the ‘green premium’ may be lower than the average, or not exist at all. In addition, as these lower GHG technologies scale their costs will tend to fall over time (all projects in the shared slides have a 2030 start year), while the stranded asset risks for incumbent approaches will rise.

Ultimately we hope to reduce these swings in market sentiment by focusing on fundamentals, revealing risks and opportunities early in project development processes, and helping reduce wasted time and development capital.

What does this mean for me?

The example data summaries shared today underpins every search in Othersphere Explorer, part of how we help cut project siting, design, and diligence from months to hours. With this breakthrough technology enabled by Google Cloud, users can:

  • View optimized site footprint, project design, and dispatch strategy behind any single point
  • Download a fully functional DCF project model with one click
  • Isolate analysis down to sites that can realistically supply to certain industries, companies, or assets
  • Design projects based on a range of power supply concepts, project sizes, and financial and commercial constraints
  • Filter locations based on critical questions such as proximity to offtakers, and whether it is a viable place to build based on numerous environmental/human factors
  • Adjust caps and penalties for mass-balance carbon intensity optimization as well as real-world penalties for failing to meet offtake delivery schedules
  • Search all of the above in seconds (saving hours, days, weeks, etc ⏱️)

If you would like to learn more, please reach out for a demo!

Othersphere 101 - Power of bottom-up modeling

Othersphere models tens of billions of potential capital projects from the bottom-up in parallel, to help turn asset-level success into global-scale action.

Blog
Read this story
8.22.2024

Topography is one of the many variables within the Othersphere Explorer tool used to reveal and diligence optimal siting of sustainable infrastructure projects. To inform this analysis we use licensed data, open data, and novel datasets we have created or augmented. Our topography data is an example of the latter, where we built upon the exceptional work within the Multi-Error-Removed Improved-Terrain Digital Elevation Model (MERIT DEM).

🔍 Augmented for massive-scale analysis

To make this sophisticated dataset even more accessible, we have introduced tiling to the MERIT DEM. Each tile offers detailed elevation and ruggedness data, enhancing usability for systematic geographical analyses.

🚀 Tackling climate must be a group effort

We are excited to release this tiled dataset derived from MERIT DEM, adhering to licensing requirements and aiming to benefit the broader community working on topographical challenges. This data is provided as a parquet file (~4.5GB) and is access through Google Cloud Storage. Please click here to learn more about setting up a Google account to access the data and here to learn more about gsutil for downloading files. Alternatively, please contact explore@othersphere.io can we can work with you to determine other file delivery options.

Data Release #1 - Topography

Multi-Error-Removed Improved-Terrain Digital Elevation Model (MERIT DEM) is a sophisticated dataset that addresses terrain issues common in other mapping efforts.

Data
Read this story
5.3.2024
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Please reach out if you would like to learn more about Othersphere, our products, and opportunities to partner in accelerating global industrial decarbonization.

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