International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Vol.40, No.30, 9049-9060, 2015
Techno-economic analysis of PV/H-2 systems
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the costs of grid-connected PV/H-2 systems sized to meet a setpoint power using ORIENTE (R) software. The aim is to determine optimal component sizes to minimize cost of injection-to-grid. We study the case of guaranteed PV production where the PV array is coupled to a hydrogen chain to inject a constant setpoint power into the grid from 8am to 5pm (local time) all year long without failure (100% satisfaction level). We studied 4 setpoint powers: 100, 200, 300 and 400 kW. The results show that regardless of setpoint power, the optimum system design fits the ratios: installed PV power-to-setpoint power = 2.4-2.5; nominal electrolyzer power-to-setpoint power = 0.72-0.75; nominal fuel cell power-to-setpoint power = 1. We also found that the capacity of the H-2 tanks corresponds to around 48-50 days of off-grid power (number of days where setpoint power comes exclusively from the fuel cells). Copyright (C) 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.