Techno-Economic Study for Adding Hydrogen Storage to the Photovoltaic Plant in Neom City

Abstract

The status and future potential of renewable energy in Saudi Arabia for Vision "2030" seeks clean energy, an essential input into most industrial sector production processes. Neom city is 100% dependent on renewable energy to limit climate change caused by increased CO2 emissions. Hydrogen (H2) is a clean energy carrier; it can store a large amount of energy. The use of hydrogen as an energy source has gained much attention in recent years. This work aims to study the techno-economic of adding hydrogen storage to a photovoltaic (PV) plant in Neom City and build a mathematical model to simulate metal hydride hydrogen storage. Therefore, this study proposes to create a mathematical model of heat and mass transfer inside a metal hydride hydrogen storage and solve it numerically. Furthermore, a techno-economics comparison of the two different plants is provided. On the grid, the system has a capacity of 30 MW each year. The first application of PV plants without hydrogen storage and the second application of PV plants with hydrogen storage were compared using the system Advisor model (SAM). To reach the economic-study parameters such as the payback period (PP), intern rate of return IRR), and other economic parameters.