Green hydrogen-powered air conditioning system for hot climates: Performance and economic analysis

The global community is shifting toward sustainable and clean energy solutions to combat climate change and fossil fuel depletion, particularly for high-consumption systems such as air conditioning (AC). This work addresses this problem by proposing and evaluating a green hydrogen-powered AC system for Saudi Arabia's extreme climate conditions and comparing it with a grid-powered AC system. The proposed system integrates photovoltaic (PV) panels, an electrolyzer, hydrogen storage, and a fuel cell in a unique setting that stores excess solar energy from winter months to power AC during summer nights and periods of insufficient solar radiation. Through comprehensive simulation modeling using actual Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, weather data, the performance of both AC units, including electricity demand, cost analysis, and environmental analysis, are conducted. The findings demonstrate that the hydrogen-powered system successfully meets 100 % of the AC electricity demand while producing 74.83 kg of hydrogen annually with 6.1 kg excess capacity. Economic analysis reveals a competitive levelized cost of electricity (0.071 $/kWh), a levelized cost of hydrogen (5.68 $/kg), and a reasonable payback period of 12.11 years. The principal environmental benefit is eliminating the 1,244 kg CO₂-equivalent annual emissions associated with the tested conventional grid-powered system.