Decarbonizing Hard-to-Abate Sectors with Renewable Hydrogen: A Real Case Application to the Ceramics Industry

Hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources is a valuable energy carrier for linking growing renewable electricity generation with the hard-to-abate sectors, such as cement, steel, glass, chemical, and ceramics industries. In this context, this paper presents a new model of hydrogen production based on solar photovoltaics and wind energy with application to a real-world ceramics factory. For this task, a novel multipurpose profit-maximizing model is implemented using GAMS. The developed model explores hydrogen production with multiple value streams that enable technical and economical informed decisions under specific scenarios. Our results show that it is profitable to sell the hydrogen produced to the gas grid rather than using it for self-consumption for low-gas-price scenarios. On the other hand, when the price of gas is significantly high, it is more profitable to use as much hydrogen as possible for self-consumption to supply the factory and reduce the internal use of natural gas. The role of electricity self-consumption has proven to be key for the project’s profitability as, without this revenue stream, the project would not be profitable in any analysed scenario.