Development and assessment of an onshore wind and concentrated solar based power, heat, cooling and hydrogen energy system for remote communities

Abstract

Both solar and wind are considered leading renewables, and coupling them uniquely for solving the energy solutions in the remote communities is strongly needed to meet the demands of electricity, heat, cooling and hydrogen, which is the main goal of this study. In this regard, the present paper investigates a newly designed stand-alone onshore wind and concentrated solar-based hydrogen energy system where an anion exchange membrane electrolyzer, proton exchange membrane fuel cell, a heat pump, and absorption refrigeration chiller are considered as the other system components. The proposed system is then analyzed from the energy and exergy points of view of thermodynamics. Each hour in a typical meteorological year is considered in a time-dependent analysis to evaluate the feasibility as well as to better understand the phenomena and the effects of the varying parameters on the system performance. To perform a realistic analysis, the actual meteorological data and commercially available products' data are used based on the availability. The main contributions of this study to the state of the art of the current literature may be listed as the system originality, system integration for multigeneration, and time-dependent system analysis and performance assessment with the selected hourly parameters. A unique case study is performed for an indigenous community where a community load is generated for each hour by considering the meteorological characteristic of Cochrane, Ontario. The system capacities are designed according to the community in the case study where a 23 MWp wind farm, 3.17 MWp PT-CSP, 14.3 MW PEM fuel cell, and 19 MW AEM electrolyzer are required to fully meet the commodity requirements. The present wind and solar-based system brings synergetic advantages, such as lowering the energy storage capacity needed and providing a more synchronized operation. The overall integrated system's energy and exergy efficiencies are calculated as 20% and 19.5%, respectively. The cost assessment shows that the total operational expenses of the proposed integrated system result in $3.7 M each year while the total capital cost is $95 M. The hydrogen's unit cost is calculated as $4.38/kg, and the levelized cost of electricity is found to be $0.141/kWh. Finally, the synergetic advantages and disadvantages of using a wind and solar-based hydrogen energy system are discussed from the energetic, exergetic and economic perspectives.