Saudi Arabia
An Overview of Hydrogen Energy Generation
Feb 2024
Publication
The global issue of climate change caused by humans and its inextricable linkage to our present and future energy demand presents the biggest challenge facing our globe. Hydrogen has been introduced as a new renewable energy resource. It is envisaged to be a crucial vector in the vast low-carbon transition to mitigate climate change minimize oil reliance reinforce energy security solve the intermittency of renewable energy resources and ameliorate energy performance in the transportation sector by using it in energy storage energy generation and transport sectors. Many technologies have been developed to generate hydrogen. The current paper presents a review of the current and developing technologies to produce hydrogen from fossil fuels and alternative resources like water and biomass. The results showed that reformation and gasification are the most mature and used technologies. However the weaknesses of these technologies include high energy consumption and high carbon emissions. Thermochemical water splitting biohydrogen and photo-electrolysis are long-term and clean technologies but they require more technical development and cost reduction to implement reformation technologies efficiently and on a large scale. A combination of water electrolysis with renewable energy resources is an ecofriendly method. Since hydrogen is viewed as a considerable game-changer for future fuels this paper also highlights the challenges facing hydrogen generation. Moreover an economic analysis of the technologies used to generate hydrogen is carried out in this study.
An Optimization-Based Model for A Hybrid Photovoltaic-Hydrogen Storage System for Agricultural Operations in Saudi Arabia
Apr 2023
Publication
Renewable energy technologies and resources particularly solar photovoltaic systems provide cost-effective and environmentally friendly solutions for meeting the demand for electricity. The design of such systems is a critical task as it has a significant impact on the overall cost of the system. In this paper a mixed-integer linear programming-based model is proposed for designing an integrated photovoltaic-hydrogen renewable energy system to minimize total life costs for one of Saudi Arabia’s most important fields a greenhouse farm. The aim of the proposed system is to determine the number of photovoltaic (PV) modules the amount of hydrogen accumulated over time and the number of hydrogen tanks. In addition binary decision variables are used to describe either-or decisions on hydrogen tank charging and discharging. To solve the developed model an exact approach embedded in the general algebraic modeling System (GAMS) software was utilized. The model was validated using a farm consisting of 20 greenhouses a worker-housing area and a water desalination station with hourly energy demand. The findings revealed that 1094 PV panels and 1554 hydrogen storage tanks are required to meet the farm’s load demand. In addition the results indicated that the annual energy cost is $228234 with a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of 0.12 $/kWh. On the other hand the proposed model reduced the carbon dioxide emissions to 882 tons per year. These findings demonstrated the viability of integrating an electrolyzer fuel cell and hydrogen tank storage with a renewable energy system; nevertheless the cost of energy produced remains high due to the high capital cost. Moreover the findings indicated that hydrogen technology can be used as an energy storage solution when the production of renewable energy systems is variable as well as in other applications such as the industrial residential and transportation sectors. Furthermore the results revealed the feasibility of employing renewable energy as a source of energy for agricultural operations.
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