Investigation and Performance Evaluation of a Solar PV/T-Based Multi-Generation Plant for Clean Hydrogen Production

This research focuses on the thermodynamic analysis of a solar photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T)-based combined plant that uses energy and exergy efficiency to generate clean power, hot water, cooling, and hydrogen. This newly developed scheme is organised by a solar PV/T unit, a transcritical rankine cycle (tRC) with an ejector, and a PEM electrolyser. A comprehensive parametric analysis and dynamic modelling are fulfilled to determine the system performance changes. According to the analysis results, the developed plant can generate 9.153 kW of net electricity, 88.39 kW of cooling load, 151.9 kW of hot water, and 0.00002395 kg/s of green hydrogen. Finally, the system had 25.80% energy efficiency and 11.63% exergy efficiency.