Assessment of hydrogen storage capacity required for decarbonization: A case study using off-site green hydrogen for buildings

Abstract

We have been developing hydrogen utilization systems for buildings using fuel cell, electrolyzer, and metal hydride hydrogen storage. This paper describes the reduction of CO₂ emissions from buildings and assesses the hydrogen storage capacity required for using off-site hydrogen. We prepared a low- and a high-load-factor model to investigate the effects of off-site hydrogen deployment for different building uses. We confirmed that off-site hydrogen delivery contributes to reducing hydrogen storage capacity in the two models. We identified how hydrogen delivery planning can substantially reduce hydrogen storage capacity while achieving high CO₂ emission reductions. The study also confirmed that hydrogen transportation is effective, even when parameters such as photovoltaic (PV) generation capacity are considered. The entire off-site hydrogen utilization system costs, including the cost of operating off-site hydrogen in a building, were evaluated to identify lower-cost operation conditions. The findings show that the cost of operating an off-site hydrogen system in a building can be managed through a well-designed hydrogen delivery strategy that does not increase the capacity required for hydrogen storage facilities.