Optimising Hybrid Energy Solutions for Hydrogen Production in South Africa

South Africa's heavy reliance on coal for electricity generation contributes adversely to global warming. This has led to a national initiative to transition to variable renewable energy sources for electricity and green hydrogen production. However, the variability and intermittency of the renewable energy sources raises reliability and efficiency concerns. To help improve the reliability and efficiency of the variable renewable energy systems, this paper proposes a Hybrid Hydrogen Energy System optimisation model, which uses wind and solar energy to power a Proton Exchange Membrane electrolyser for green hydrogen production. The Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II is used to implement the optimisation. The optimisation objectives considered for the study are minimisation of total system cost and maximisation of system efficiency at high system reliability. Results demonstrate that total system cost and system efficiency are successfully optimised. This highlights NSGA-II's potential for optimising larger hybrid hydrogen energy systems in South Africa, which can contribute to an increase in the reliability and efficiency of variable renewable energy systems.