Modelling and Computer Simulation of a Solar Photovoltaic and Hydrogen System for Sustainable & Zero Emission Electricity Production

  • Ahmad Zahedi, Monash University, Australia
  • Global environmental concerns are leading to the development of advanced processes and technologies for sustainable energy production.

    Most of the conventional energy production processes convert carbon to carbon dioxide, which is discharged into the atmosphere. The growing awareness of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on global climate change has necessitated a reassessment of the conventional approach to achieve a sustainable and environmentally-friendly energy.

    Author of this paper believes that, because of environmental advantages that hydrogen has, it can play an important role as one of the important components of clean and sustainable power supply in the future.

    The objective of this paper is to discuss the technical and economical aspects of an electricity production system in which electricity is generated by an intermittent and renewable energy source i.e. solar photovoltaic array in location, where this resource is plentifully available, but grid network is not necessarily available to absorb the electricity produced by PV array. This paper proposes the option of converting the electricity into hydrogen, being used for transportation or in Fuel Cell for reproduction of electricity.

    A further objective of this paper is to present the results of a computer simulation program developed for investigation of the optimal sizing and performance prediction of the entire solar PV and hydrogen system for a certain electricity demand.