Degradation-informed reliability for hybrid activation strategy for hydrogen systems

Evolving growth of hydrogen systems highlights the need for a decision framework balancing reliability and economics. Yet, most studies consider each aspect separately. This study presents a reliability and economic assessment of a hydrogen system with electrolyzer, fuel cell, and storage tank. Stochastic degradation-informed time-to-failure distributions are generated to compute real-time reliability curves. Systematic evaluation of reliability thresholds (0.5 to 1.0) identifies the best activation timings of 2.7–3.86 years for the fuel cell and 3.2–4.6 years for the electrolyzer. Economic analysis indicates net present values of $1.62 million (series), $2.016 million (hybrid), and $2.29 million (parallel), with the hybrid achieving higher reliability and costing 12.09% less than the parallel configuration. A mathematical model relating activation times and system cost to reliability is developed, achieving prediction errors of 5% and 2.5%, respectively. Results show the hybrid system’s superiority in balancing reliability and cost, providing a new framework for improving hydrogen systems. • First study to link real time reliability with hybrid timing and cost trade-off for hydrogen systems. • Backup activation is based on reliability thresholds of each component. • Detailed lifecycle cost model with dynamic salvage and replacement values. • Mathematical model captures cost-reliability trade-off at system level. • 12.09% Savings in the NPV of the proposed hybrid architecture.