Mathematical Modeling of an Anion Exchange Membrane Electrolyzer for Integration in a Novel Solar Photovoltaic-Battery-Green Hydrogen Nanogrid

The Mediterranean area is an ideal location for harnessing solar energy due to the high solar irradiation availability. Utilization of innovative solutions address renewable energy instabilities and optimize the utilization of local clean energy resources. A promising technology is the utilization of green hydrogen subsystem to these solar systems. Such an integration could add significant capabilities, namely, provision of seasonal energy storage, increase of solar photovoltaic capacity, and export of the generated green hydrogen for other uses, such as fueling of hydrogen electric vehicles. A detailed model is developed in this work to assess the performance of the proposed green hydrogen subsystem configuration with a view to utilizing it as part of a future, larger, wholistic energy system. At full-load the model performs at an efficiency of 62.4%, while performance at a 10% part-load is 82.3%. These performance results suggest a very promising potential for this technology which can be harnessed in the future multi-scale energy systems, provided that the economic performance is also promising.