Performance Assessment of Fuel Cell-based Hybrid Energy Systems for Green Hydrogen Production and Heat Recovery /

Abstract

Recently, the fuel cell has re-attracted the attention of both industry and academia as a feasible power source that enhances the system's performance. Therefore, the fuel cell integration with a hybrid microgrid is cost-effectively performed for clean energy. Optimal designs and performance of on-grid and off-grid combinations of solar PV, battery storage, diesel generator, electrolyzer, hydrogen tank, fuel cell, thermionic and thermoelectric generator-based systems have been identified for a hybrid microgrid at university campus. The primary objective is to develop an optimum system with maximum energy consumption from renewable sources with less emissions and energy costs. The goal is to transform the fossil-fuel-powered grid into a renewable microgrid. To fulfill the load demand, solar PV and fuel cell with combined heat and power are analyzed and operate as a primary source for average daily load. At first, electrolyzer generates hydrogen and store into hydrogen tank then a fuel cell converts the stored hydrogen into electricity with by-product heat and water. Recovered waste heat is further utilized in the combined heat and power process by thermionic and thermoelectric generators. Thus, the optimum costeffective energy system from on-grid and off-grid simulations is selected and validated by the results. The modelling and performance of an optimized on-grid solar PV-Fuel Cell system offer the optimum results: 79% from solar PV, 14.93% from fuel cell, 2.36% from thermionic, 0.91% from thermoelectric, and 2.76% from grid of total energy. The overall electrical load is fulfilled with negligible power shortage of 0.01%. The optimal system has $7,981,160 of net present cost, 0.0153 $/kWh cost of energy with 1.74 kg of carbon dioxide emissions per kWh. The overall reduction in carbon mission is 66.72%, 42.21% and 54.5% comparative to diesel, oil and natural gas-fuelled energy systems.