Solar to power and hydrogen production, storage and utilization in textile industry: A feasibility analysis

Abstract

This study aims to move towards sustainable textile industry by controlling water and energy. For this purpose, a novel system is developed based on photovoltaic and electrolyzer systems, which produces hydrogen from the industrial wastewater after pre-treatment using the electrolyzer, and combines it with natural-gas to decrease pollutant emission rate and use it in the heat supply section. In this study, the equipment size are optimized and the system is evaluated from the technical, economic, and environmental aspects. For the case study, five different sites in Iran, including Tabriz, Amol, Torbat Heydariyeh, Yazd, and Sistan were considered. The economic evaluation showed that the levelized cost of electricity varied from 55 $/MWh to 78 $/MWh in different cities of Iran. The levelized cost of hydrogen varied from 6.7 $/kg to 16.3 $/kg in different cities. The levelized cost of heat ranged from 25.5 $/MWh-t to 46.9 $/MWh-t. The environmental advantage of the proposed system indicates that combining hydrogen with natural gas leads to savings of 31,688 Nm3/yrs. of natural gas compared to the conventional system. Overall, the proposed system has the advantage of reducing CO2 emissions by 640–935 ton-CO2/yr.