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

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.