Development and assessment of integrated hydrogen and renewable energy systems for a sustainable city

Advances in renewable energies, hydrogen, electrification, and improvements in efficiency are projected to be the main avenues for carbon emission reductions. Therefore, a combination of renewable energy sources integrated with hydrogen production is needed to meet the climate targets. The novel system combinations studied in this paper promote renewable energies, hydrogen production, and electrification to reduce and/or eliminate the dependency on fossil fuels for sustainability. The communities chosen for this study were in Canada [A], South Africa [B], the Netherlands [C] and Denmark [D]. The proposed systems consisted of wind plants (including offshore), solar photovoltaics, and biomass-based integrated systems for power generation, heat recovery, fresh water, bioethanol and hydrogen production. The hydrogen production is considered using a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer and excess electricity generated from renewables. Sustainable fuel sources for transportation proposed in this system are hydrogen, electrical charging stations and bioethanol. All locations had good potential for renewable power generation and hydrogen production. The maximum capacities for the wind and solar farms in the selected locations are identified as 187.5 MW and 32.7 MW respectively. The actual power generated from the plants varies based on the climate conditions of different locations. At the maximum wind and solar power generated (without accounting for community electrical demand), the maximum annual potential capacities obtained for hydrogen generation are 307 tons for location [A], 232 tons for location [B], 399 tons for location [C] and 487 tons for location [D].