Development and assessment of a solar-driven multigeneration plant with compressed hydrogen storage for multiple useful products

Abstract

Expanding energy demands and to tackle with greenhouse gas emissions require new research on the carbon-free energy conversion system, which are renewable energy sources and also hydrogen. Especially, in the coming years, green hydrogen, which is produced using renewable energy sources, will become increasingly significant. This current study presents the design and evaluation of compressed hydrogen generation and beneficial outputs, which are electricity, freshwater, heating, and cooling, with a solar-driven integrated plant. Comprehensive thermodynamic performance evaluation is conducted on the multigeneration plant through energetic and exergetic efficiency methodologies. The proposed study comprises a solar heliostat field, a supercritical Brayton plant, a transcritical Rankine plant, an ejector refrigeration cycle, a desalination process, and a hydrogen generation-compression plant. Furthermore, the innovation and importance of this work are that carbon dioxide fluid is used in the Brayton and Rankine cycle. After conducting the analysis, the findings show that the net power production capacity of the developed system is 653.4 kW. Also, net hydrogen and freshwater production capacities are determined as 2.821 kgh−1 and 2.951 kgs−1. The energetic and exergetic performances of the examined research are determined as 43.77% and 19.61%, respectively. In conclusion, the maximum exergy destruction rate between the plant's sub-units is computed in the solar heliostat field with 4044 kW.