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Exploiting different electricity markets via highly rate-mismatched modular electrochemical synthesis

Nature Energy volume 9, pages 1064–1073 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Mitigating the inherent spatio-temporal stochasticity and intermittency of renewable power is key for enabling the decarbonization of the power grid and motivates the development of flexible technologies that can shift power demand and supply across space–time and scales. Here we develop an electrochemical synthesis strategy capable of providing demand (load) flexibility at different timescales by participating in multiple electricity markets (day ahead, real time and frequency regulation). Using a fast proton-conducting redox material, copper hexacyanoferrate, highly rate-mismatched modular electrochemical synthesis was achieved by decoupling half reactions with different intrinsic kinetics to produce chemicals under drastically different reaction rates and timescales: the fast hydrogen evolution reaction and slow persulfate production reaction. Such a strategy enables flexible participation in different electricity markets and can reduce electricity cost of chemical production by 30–40%. These results open a conceptual strategy for flexibly integrating modular electrochemical manufacturing processes into the fluctuating power grid to achieve more economical and sustainable operations.

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Fig. 1: Participation in dynamic electricity markets using different technologies.
Fig. 2: Structural and electrochemical characterizations of CuHCF as a fast proton battery material.
Fig. 3: ModES with highly mismatched reaction rates.
Fig. 4: Market participation strategies and electricity cost reduction.

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Data availability

The frequency regulation market data was obtained from the PJM Interconnection LLC Independent System Operator. Frequency regulation price data is public, but the frequency regulation signal data is not publicly available. Source data for figures that do not use the frequency regulation market data are provided with the manuscript. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The code and necessary data for the computational framework are provided as a Supplementary Code file with the manuscript.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) FMRG-2328160 (S.J., V.M.Z., R.W. and J.M.), the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) (R.W., H.S. and S.J.) and NSF CBET-1748516 (V.M.Z. and J.M.). The authors acknowledge the facilities and instrumentation at the UW-Madison Wisconsin Centers for Nanoscale Technology (wcnt.wisc.edu), partially supported by the NSF through the University of Wisconsin Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (DMR- 2309000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Rui Wang, Hongyuan Sheng & Song Jin

  2. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Jiaze Ma & Victor M. Zavala

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Contributions

R.W., H.S., V.M.Z. and S.J. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. R.W. carried out materials synthesis, materials characterization, electrochemical measurements and electrochemical production. J.M. and V.M.Z. conducted numerical analysis. V.M.Z. and S.J. supervised the project. R.W., J.M., V.M.Z. and S.J. wrote the manuscript, and all authors commented on it.

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Correspondence to Victor M. Zavala or Song Jin.

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Nature Energy thanks Kody Powell, Yujie Sun and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–26, Tables 1–3 and Notes 1–3.

Supplementary Code 1

Codes for the computational framework.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 2

Electrochemical data of CuHCF the electrode.

Source Data Fig. 3

Highly rate-mismatched ModES data.

Source Data Fig. 4

Electricity price of DAM and RTM. Flexible participation of ModES in dynamic electricity markets.

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Wang, R., Ma, J., Sheng, H. et al. Exploiting different electricity markets via highly rate-mismatched modular electrochemical synthesis. Nat Energy 9, 1064–1073 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01578-8

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