Techno-economic analysis of hydrogen production by solid oxide electrolyzer coupled with dish collector

Hydrogen is considered as one of the best alternatives for fossil fuels, especially when it is produced using renewable energy resources. In this paper, dish collector is used to provide the required energy of a solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC) to produce hydrogen. Since dish collectors operate at high temperature, they would be an ideal match for high temperature electrolyzers. These electrolyzer cells need both thermal and electrical energy to produce hydrogen. A compressed air energy storage (CAES) system is used to produce electricity. To reduce its fuel consumption, it is combined with a dish collector. Another dish collector is also used to produce thermal energy. To analyze the system, both thermodynamic and economic analyses are conducted. The results showed that the system could produce 41.48 kg/day hydrogen. It is shown that efficiency of the power cycle and the electrolyzer cell is equal to 72.69% and 61.70%, respectively and levelized cost of hydrogen is 9.1203 $/kg(H2). To study the effect of key parameters on the system performance, sensitivity analysis is performed. It was concluded that maximum and minimum pressure of air cavern in the CAES system have the highest effect on the levelized cost of hydrogen. Also higher operating temperature of the electrolyzer cell benefits the system both thermodynamically and economically.