Thermo-economic feasibility analysis of a novel integrated energy system based on solar hydrogen production

Fanhua Rong, Wenxing Liang, Xueliang Yuan, Qingsong Wang, Qiao Ma and Jian Zuo

Energy, 2025, vol. 332, issue C

Abstract: To address the instability of solar power generation and facilitate large-scale application, this study proposes a novel power-to-hydrogen technology. The novel design integrates transcritical CO2 power cycle-Kalina cycle cascade system and organic Rankine cycle in series to effectively utilize parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC) thermal energy for proton exchange membrane electrolysis cell-based hydrogen production while realizing CCHP. This study evaluates the feasibility of the proposed system using six heat transfer oils from thermo-economic perspectives and performs a multi-objective optimization for each, followed by a parameter analysis of the system. The system achieves the highest energy efficiency (39.71 %) and exergy efficiency (11.00 %) when Syltherm 800 is used, while Xceltherm LV offers the lowest cost rate (50.95 $/h). Using Therminol 59 results in the highest exergy destruction (10564 kW), with the PTSC subsystem exhibiting the greatest exergy destruction (66.2 %). Multi-objective optimization identifies Therminol 66 as the optimal working medium, achieving hydrogen production, exergy efficiency, and cost rate of 1.91 mol/s, 11.78 %, and 56.14 $/h, respectively, compared to the base case, the hydrogen production and exergy efficiency show significant improvements of 32.64 % and 10.09 %. Parameter analysis shows that when the power share of hydrogen production is 0, the system's performance reaches optimal.

Keywords: Solar energy; Integrated energy system; Hydrogen energy storage; Thermo-economic feasibility assessment; Multi-objective optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225028725
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:332:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225028725

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.137230

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().