Optimal Planning of Co-Located Wind Energy and Hydrogen Plants: A Techno-Economic Analysis

Green hydrogen produced using renewable electricity could play an important role in a clean energy future. This paper seeks to analyze the techno-economic performance of integrated wind and hydrogen systems under different conditions. A co-located wind and hydrogen hybrid system is optimized to reduce the total system cost. We have adopted and improved a state-of-the-art techno-economic tool REopt, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), for optimal planning of the integrate energy system (IES). In addition to wind and electrolyzer components, we have also considered battery energy storage, hydrogen tank, and hydrogen fuel cell in the IES. The results show that (i) adding electrolyzers to the grid-connected wind energy system could reduce the total system cost by approximately 8.9%, and (ii) adding electrolyzers, hydrogen tank, and hydrogen fuel cells could reduce the total system cost by approximately 30%.