Exergo-economic and exergo-environmental analysis of a Hydrogen Storage Systems

Energy Storage technologies are the keys to reaching the 2050 Carbon neutral scenario goal. Amongst the several options for energy storage, which takes into account several processes, such as batteries, pumped hydro storage, flywheel, CAES, LAES, there is a new actor which is emerging, that is Hydrogen Storage. There are several advantages to utilizing Hydrogen as storage as it is a clean fuel if produced by renewables, it is non-toxic and it is very efficient. However, as with every process in engineering, together with several good traits there comes also some drawback. The most significant one is the low density at atmospheric pressure, which therefore required very high-pressure vessels to be stored. Within this work, the compression system for the storage of Hydrogen at high pressure (300, 500, and 700 bar) is assessed through energy, exergy, exergo-economic, and exergo-environmental analyses. The model considers the dynamic filling of the vessels and provides accurate insight into the proper management of the system. The obtained Levelized cost of hydrogen storage is about 30 c€/kWh. The overall environmental performance is evaluated by ILCD methodology. The obtained environmental cost of hydrogen storage is about 35 PTs/MWh.