Optimization of capacity configuration and comprehensive evaluation of a renewable energy electrolysis of water for hydrogen production system

Abstract

The global green hydrogen industry is experiencing rapid growth, but the high production costs are hindering its widespread adoption. To address this challenge, it is particularly important to rationally configure a renewable energy hydrogen production system. For this purpose, the study proposes a model for capacity optimization configuration of a renewable energy hydrogen production system, which integrates wind power, photovoltaic (PV) power, and concentrating solar power (CSP) with alkaline electrolyzer. It conducts capacity optimization configuration and comprehensive evaluations of the hydrogen production system across various scenarios. To minimize the total daily consumption cost, the CPLEX solver is utilized to solve the objective function and determine the capacity configuration of the renewable energy electrolysis of water hydrogen production system generator set under various scenarios. This approach achieves a utilization rate of over 99% for renewable energy. Through comprehensive evaluation, research has found that renewable energy-coupled hydrogen production significantly reduces generator capacity and electricity generation costs compared to separate hydrogen production, enhancing the economic efficiency of the system. The Wind-PV-CSP coupling hydrogen production system has the smallest generator assembly capacity and the lowest hydrogen production cost, which is 18.84 CNY·kg⁻¹, significantly lower than the cost of PV-CSP coupling hydrogen production (25.78 CNY·kg⁻¹) and wind-PV coupling hydrogen production (25.86 CNY·kg⁻¹). It has good development prospects and plays an important role in exploring the development path of large-scale on-site consumption of new energy.