Investigation of hydrogen production pathways for optimized performance in sustainable fuel cell microgrids

• Green, orange, and yellow hydrogen production pathways are investigated. • Modeled and optimized via HOMER, Fuzzy Logic, and GWO. • KPIs: LCOE, LCOH, NPC, CO 2 emissions, and electrical reliability. • Fuel cell–PV microgrids without batteries provide the optimal cost–emission balance. • GWO minimizes lifecycle cost without compromising reliability. Hydrogen pathways play a critical role in determining the economic and environmental feasibility of hydrogen-based energy systems. Without a consistent comparison of alternative production routes and their integration with end-use microgrids, hydrogen deployment strategies may lead to economically inefficient or environmentally suboptimal solutions. This study first develops an integrated modelling framework in HOMER to simulate hydrogen production pathways and fuel-cell-based microgrid configurations, after which Fuzzy Logic and Grey Wolf Optimization are applied for independent validation of the techno-economic results. The framework combines HOMER-based system modelling with Fuzzy Logic and Grey Wolf Optimization validation to improve techno-economic reliability. Three hydrogen production pathways are analyzed: green hydrogen from hybrid solar–wind resources, yellow hydrogen from photovoltaic energy, and orange hydrogen from grid electricity. Green hydrogen achieves an LCOH of 11.5 USD/kg with zero emissions, while orange hydrogen achieves the lowest cost with an LCOE of 0.126 USD/kWh and LCOH of 11.2 USD/kg, but produces more than 3.3 million kg/year CO 2 emissions. Yellow hydrogen is economically infeasible, with an LCOH of 241.25 USD/kg and NPC exceeding 440 million USD. In the utilization stage, PV-assisted fuel-cell microgrids without battery storage provide the best economic performance, reducing LCOE by up to 31 percent and NPC by approximately 16 percent compared with fuel-cell-only systems. The proposed preparation strategy enables consistent lifecycle cost evaluation through direct transfer of hydrogen cost between production and utilization stages. Validation results show deviations below 3 percent, confirming strong model consistency.