Capacity Optimization for a Photovaltaic-Integrated Hydrogen Refueling Station System

To promote the widespread adoption of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, reducing the cost of hydrogen refueling stations (HRS) is impatiently anticipated. This paper proposes a Photovoltaic-Integrated Hydrogen Refueling Station (PI-HRS) and establishes a capacity planning model to configure the PI-HRS to optimize its economic feasibility. Furthermore, a rule-based operating strategy is introduced, and the economic capacity planning model is solved using the improved Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm based on the proposed operating strategy. The optimization results demonstrate that the proposed PI-HRS, compared to traditional HRS, reduces the unit cost of hydrogen energy by 24.62%, which indicates that the optimized configuration of the PI-HRS achieves both economic and environmental benefits effectively. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to study the influence of electricity prices and hydrogen distribution on the capacity planning results.