Techno-economic analysis of a multi-energy system for the co-production of green hydrogen, renewable electricity and heat

Renewable Multi-Energy Systems (MESs) are receiving growing attention since they represent a key step towards the decarbonization of electricity, thermal and transport sectors. This paper aims to investigate, from techno-economic perspectives, the performances of an off-grid MES that is designed for satisfying i) the electric and thermal loads of industrial utilities and ii) the energy requirements of novel refueling stations, able to supply electricity for battery electric vehicles fast charging and hydrogen for fuel cell electric vehicles. Wind power is used to meet the electric energy load and the hydrogen demand, while the thermal load is covered by burning biogas and by recovering useful heat inside the system. Two MES configurations, differing in terms of energy storage systems, have been sized by applying an optimization procedure, based on the minimization of the Net Present Cost (NPC), performed by using HOMER Pro software. The annual operations of the MES configurations have been analyzed and the levelized costs of electricity (LCOE), of hydrogen (LCOH) and of thermal energy (LCOT) have been estimated by considering the share of each produced energy stream with respect to the total energy output (or the energy served to the utilities). Results highlighted that the co-production of energy streams allows to significantly reduce their levelized costs with values that are in the range of 0.048–0.054 $/kWh (LCOE), 3.14–3.49 $/kg (LCOH) and 0.037–0.048 $/kWh (LCOT). These costs can be further reduced by connecting the MES to the grid and by delivering the excess of the electricity produced by the renewable source (on-grid configuration).