Abstract
Green hydrogen is addressed as a promising solution to decarbonize industrial and mobility sectors. In this context, ports could play a key role not only as hydrogen users but also as suppliers for industrial plants with which they have strong commercial ties. The implementation of hydrogen technologies in ports has started to be addressed as a strategy for renewable energy transition but still requires a detailed evaluation of the involved costs, which cannot be separated from the correct design and operation of the plant. Hence, this study proposes the design and operation optimization of a hydrogen production and storage system in a typical Italian port. Multi-objective optimization is performed to determine the optimal levelized cost of hydrogen in environmental and techno-economic terms. A Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) electrolyzer powered by a grid-integrated photovoltaic (PV) plant, a compression station and two-pressure level storage systems are chosen to provide hydrogen to a hydrogen refueling station for a 20-car fleet and satisfy the demand of the hydrogen batch annealing in a steel plant. The results report that a 341 kWP PV plant, 89 kW electrolyzer and 17 kg hydrogen storage could provide hydrogen at 7.80 €/kgH2, potentially avoiding about 153 tCO2,eq/year (120 tCO2,eq/year only for the steel plant).
Highlights
It is widely accepted that the development of a green hydrogen economy could accelerate the renewable energy transition and avoid the inequalities introduced by fossil energy sources [1]
This study proposes a multi-objective optimization model to define the optimal design and operation (D&O) of a hydrogen production system in techno-economic and environmental terms
The Levelized Cost Of Hydrogen (LCOH) is evaluated for two proposed scenarios in a typical Italian port area, considering the hydrogen demand of a steel plant and the combination of both the steel plant and Hydrogen Refuelling Station (HRS) hydrogen demand
Summary
It is widely accepted that the development of a green hydrogen economy could accelerate the renewable energy transition and avoid the inequalities introduced by fossil energy sources [1]. The European Union (EU) has recently outlined some strategies to promote hydrogen production from Renewable Energy Sources (RES), and guidelines for the development of hydrogen systems are available in Italy [2,3]. In addition to the clear advantages in terms of local emissions when hydrogen is used as fuel (e.g., in fuel cell vehicles), hydrogen is one of the possible solutions to store energy produced from RES, e.g., solar and wind energy [4,5]. The stored hydrogen can be reconverted into electricity via electrochemical devices (i.e., fuel cells) or directly used as fuel or chemical feedstock, e.g., in the “hard-to-abate” industry [6]. Bhaskar et al [8] estimated that coupling hydrogen direct reduction with Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF) could reduce emissions by up to 35% at the EU grid emission level of 295 gCO2/kWh
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