State of art of hydrogen utilization for building sector and set-up with preliminary experimental results of 1 kWel solid oxide fuel cell installed in a nearly zero energy house

Abstract

The diffusion on large scale of the hydrogen-fuelled technologies could be a strategy for boosting the expected decarbonisation of the civil sector. However, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the real feasibility and the problems of the integration in a pre-existing building-plants system. Despite some conflicting opinions, the research about the application of the hydrogen system in the building sector must continue to make the technology more attractive and easily available at low cost. Therefore, first of all, the paper analyses advantages and issues through a broad overview. The main limits of the available studies regard both the approach and the technology integration. Indeed, there are few data about in-field performance analysis since the simulative/numerical investigations are usually based on in-lab prototypes. The most diffused systems referred to integrated energy solutions with proton exchange membrane fuel cell technology and in any case the integration in very low energy buildings such as the nearly zero energy (nZEB) ones is not discussed. Then basing on the discussed research gap, the paper focuses on the set-up of a new installation of micro-combined cooling, heating and power unit based on solid oxide fuel cell technology fuelled by green hydrogen. The complexity in the design of the integration with other innovative plant configurations is discussed considering as real case study a nZEB in Mediterranean climate. Preliminarily experimental results show that the combination of fuel cell and photovoltaic system could bring to positive energy with surplus energy, during autumn season, of about 23.8 kWh. Moreover, it is also proposed the validation of a dynamic numerical model developed by means of TRNSYS (Transient System Simulation Tool) that will be used for further sensitivity analysis.