Techno-economic Analysis of Stand-alone Hybrid PV-Hydrogen-Based Plug-in Electric Vehicle Charging Station

The increase in the feasibility of hydrogen-based generation makes it a promising addition to the realm of renewable energies that are being employed to address the issue of electric vehicle charging. This paper presents technical and an economical approach to evaluate a newer off-grid hybrid PV-hydrogen energy-based recharging station in the city of Jamshoro, Pakistan to meet the everyday charging needs of plug-in electric vehicles. The concept is designed and simulated by employing HOMER software. Hybrid PV-hydrogen and PV-hydrogenbattery are the two different scenarios that are carried out and compared based on their both technical as well as financial standpoints. The simulation results are evident that the hybrid PV- hydrogen-battery energy system has much more financial and economic benefits as compared with the PV-hydrogen energy system. Moreover, it is also seen that costs of energy from earlier from hybrid PV-hydrogen-battery is more appealing i.e. 0.358 $/kWh, from 0.412 $/kWh cost of energy from hybrid PV-hydrogen. The power produced by the hybrid PV- hydrogen - battery energy for the daily load demand of 1700 kWh /day, consists of two powers produced independently by the PV and fuel cells of 87.4 % and 12.6 %, respectively.