Introduction of hydrogen technologies to mitigate the impact of thermal consumption in a university campus

It is imperative for energy systems to reduce their environmental footprint in a cost-efficient manner, for which renwable energy sources (RES) and complementary technologies become desirable options to achieve said task. This is particularly the case for systems with different energy sources, as they’d be able to either address one specific type of energy demand and/or allow for the coupling of different energy carriers that would allow for technologies that normally don’t interact to start complementing each other. Therefore, this paper proposes various scenarios for the UCY campus in which hydrogen technologies would allow for the electrification of thermal demand while harnessing the surplus production coming from a solar park, which is modelled through the Integrate optimization tool and validated through DidSILENT PowerFactory. The results showcased a rise of up to 58% in self-sufficiency while the annual energy costs and CO2 emissions were reduced by 45% and 48% respectively.