Analysis of large-scale (1GW) off-grid agrivoltaic solar farm for hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicle (HFCEV) charging station

Abstract

The tendency towards solar energy is increasing daily due to the high increase in net energy demand and recent efforts to reduce high carbon emissions. This causes invasions of agricultural lands and forest areas. Photovoltaic (PV) systems combined with agricultural production (agrivoltaics) are being developed as a potential solution.

In addition to creating extra areas for solar energy, agrivoltaic systems can increase land equivalent ratios. This leads to higher efficiency land use and additional income for farmers and entrepreneurs. Therefore, agrivoltaic systems have the potential to make the food and energy supply chain sustainable. Although both systems have many advantages, few projects have been done to use the land under ground-mounted PV systems. In addition, thanks to the development of Hydrogen-Powered Vehicle (HPV) technologies, studies to meet the need for Hydrogen from these combined systems will significantly impact the development of such projects in the future.

As a result, this project designed and simulated a 1GW off-grid combined crop (tomatoes) and solar farm (agrivoltaic farm) for Australia, California, China, Nigeria and Spain. The hydrogen generation potential was found and compared with five different refuelling patterns for HPV. Furthermore, five levels of hydrogen storage were investigated to find optimal site configurations for each location. Following this, thorough financial analyses were completed for each of the 125 unique site configurations. This analysis found that the Nigerian site location had the highest number of HPV refuelling at 3.75 million per year, assuming 8 kg of hydrogen is required per refuelling. The Spanish site location had the least, at 3.11 million per year. The optimal level of hydrogen storage, with regard to financial viability, was when the number of cars refuelled was 90 % of the maximum refuelling potential of the site configuration. The levelised cost of hydrogen ranged from £3.06/kg (Nigeria) to £6.38 (Spain), consistent with IEA estimates for low-carbon green hydrogen. The financial analyses also demonstrated the necessity of both hydrogen and crop incomes to be financially sound for the overall project to be financially viable.