Techno-economic analysis of hydrogen production via photovoltaic, battery and electrolysis: plant sizing and hydrogen cost.

Abstract

Abstract Photovoltaic reached more than 20% panel efficiency and less than 20% system efficiency losses and 1 M€/MW cost. Similar cost is reached by electrolyzer meanwhile the efficiency can be more than 60% from 3% to 110% of the nominal power. Battery cost reached less than 0.5 M€/MWh meanwhile efficiency is higher and lifetime has reached more than 20.000 cycle if uses are within 20-80% of the state of charge. With these values the battery can be downsized (owing to the large % of electrolyzer nominal power) but still hydrogen production cost from photovoltaic is not competitive. These paper analyses what can be the better size among photovoltaic, battery and electrolyzer in order to reach the lowest hydrogen production cost with a sensitivity analysis on representative parameters (efficiencies, CAPEX and OPEX) for these technologies.