Volume 49

Green Hydrogen and Solar EV City Concept in Santiago-Chile Javiera Cepeda-Kato, Takuro Kobashi

Abstract

Urban decarbonization is an important step in achieving carbon neutrality as urban population is expected to increase substantially for the next decades globally. This research evaluates the performance of a combined system of rooftop photovoltaics (PV) integrated with Electrical Vehicles (EV) as batteries (PV+EV) and Green Hydrogen (GH2) as energy storage for the Santiago Metropolitan Region of Chile using a techno-economic analysis. Several scenarios were analyzed including different years (2019 and 2030) reflecting declining costs of technologies, different technology combinations, and net billing system. In the simulations, the surplus renewable electricity from PV+EV is used to produce GH2 through Electrolysis Cells (PEMEC) and stored in tanks. When the city’s demand cannot be met by the PV+EV system, GH2 is used to generate electricity through Fuel Cells (PEMFC) for the demand. Results show that for the PV + EV + NB scenario with the estimated costs of technologies in 2030, it is possible to supply 96% of the total electricity demand of the city with 97% CO2 emission reduction and 37% cost savings. The surplus electricity from the system is used to generate green hydrogen and met the demand of the city, when PV generation is low. Therefore, we conclude that the proposed rooftop PV+EV+GH2 system is a viable and effective option to deeply decarbonize the urban power system with local PV generation.

Keywords Green hydrogen, photovoltaics, renewable energies, techno-economic analysis, electric vehicles, urban decarbonization