Techno-economic and composite performance assessment of fuel cell-based hybrid energy systems for green hydrogen production and heat recovery

This study aims an optimal design and performance assessment of fuel cell-based energy system for a university campus. To fulfil the average daily load, solar PV and fuel cell with combined heat and power system operate as the primary source. In the initial process, electrolyzer generates green hydrogen and solid oxide fuel cell converts the stored hydrogen into electricity with byproduct heat. Heat is further utilized with combined heat and power process performed by the thermionic and thermoelectric generators. Therefore, six different grid-connected and standalone hybrid systems are simulated in HOMER Pro software to get the optimum energy system. The performance of an optimized grid-connected solar PV-Fuel Cell system offers the optimum results: the overall green hydrogen production is 0.28 million kg/yr with levelized cost of 6.94 $/kg and the recovered heat is 1.19 GWh/yr. The electricity contributes 62.54% from solar PV, 22.45% from fuel cell, 2.91% from thermionic, 1.12% from thermoelectric, 10.95% purchase from grid, and 22.67% sold to the grid. The optimal system has $25.95 million of net present cost, 0.1084 $/kWh of levelized energy cost with 0.072 kg/kWh of carbon dioxide emissions. The overall reduction in carbon emission is 5.6% comparative to natural gas-fuelled energy system.