Techno-economic analysis and optimization of solar and wind energy systems for power generation and hydrogen production in Saudi Arabia

The objective of this study is to investigate the potentials of power generation and hydrogen production via solar and wind energy resources at different locations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, namely; Dhahran, Riyadh, Jeddah, Abha and Yanbu. These locations represent the climatic conditions variety in the Kingdom with different solar radiation and wind speed potentials. At each location, different renewable off-grid power generation systems are considered to cover a load demand of a typical house incorporating; photovoltaic (PV) array, wind turbines, converter, batteries, electrolyzer, fuel cell (FC) and hydrogen tank. Six systems are considered in hourly base simulations; PV/battery bank, wind/battery bank, PV/wind/battery bank, PV/FC, wind/FC and PV/wind/FC. The simulations have been extended to cover two global locations, namely; Toronto (Canada) and Sydney (Australia). The simulations and the optimizations studies are carried out to identify the coat effective configurations. The results show that integration of 2 kW PV array, 3 wind turbines, 2 kW converter and 7 batteries storage bank is the best configuration that leads to the minimum levelized cost of energy (COE) of 0.609 $/kWh at Yanbu area. Replacing the battery bank by a combination of electrolyzer, fuel cell and hydrogen tank, storage system is possible; however, the cost increases due to the investment cost of the system components. Integrating PV/wind/FC in Abha area gives the minimum levelized cost of energy (COE) of 1.208 $/kWh and the cost of the hydrogen production (COH) is 43.1 $/kg.