Cost Analysis and Optimization of Green Hydrogen Production via Concentrating Solar Technologies and PEM Electrolyzer

The burgeoning demand for power across the globe and the disastrous effect of climate change that results from power generation through depleting unclean fuel sources have necessitated the use of renewable and clean fuels. Hydrogen is a good alternative but only when produced from low-carbon energy resources. However, hydrogen production via this pathway has a high cost and low system efficiency. Therefore, a comparative cost analysis has been performed for hydrogen production through solar power tower (SPT) and parabolic trough collector (PTC) with proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer. This is carried out using different cycle configurations comprising a modified steam Rankine cycle (MSRC), supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle (SCBC), and organic Rankine cycle (ORC). Optimization of the solar tower power configurations is also performed for improved system performance. The result of the analysis showed that all SPT’s configurations outperformed the PTC’s configurations except for the configuration comprising the steam Rankine cycle (SRC) and ORC due to how well it performed under the low operating temperature of the PTC system. The levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) ranged from 7.78 $/kg for the PTC-MSRC-ORC configuration to 17.76 $/kg for the PTC-MSRC-SCBC configuration. The parametric analysis of the system also showed that the capacity factor had the greatest influence on system performance. Furthermore, a multiobjective optimization of the system using a brute-force algorithm for minimizing the LCOH and maximizing efficiency improved the system performance in all configurations.