Reliability-Based Design Optimization for Green Hydrogen Production Network

Green hydrogen (GH), produced via electrolysis powered by renewable energy sources (RESs), offers a sustainable energy storage solution. Designing GH production networks is challenging due to the variability introduced by the intermittency of RESs and the reliability of interdependent system components. This study uses optimization to aid GH system design, specifically subsystem sizing and technology selection, by minimizing a newly formulated levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH). This formulation incorporates a reliability metric, lost GH due to downtime. The model achieves an LCOH of 3.19 USD/kg for the analyzed system. The findings reveal how variations in uptime ratio (UTR) and demand affect LCOH and power curtailment. Threshold regions highlight the trade-offs between investing in system maintenance to improve UTR for a lower LCOH and leveraging enhanced UTR to reduce power curtailment by an efficient design.