Feasibility study on the provision of electricity and hydrogen for domestic purposes in the south of Iran using grid-connected renewable energy plants

This work presents a feasibility study on the provision of electricity and hydrogen with renewable grid connected and off-the-grid systems for Bandar Abbas City in the south of Iran. The software HOMER Pro® has been used to perform the analysis. A techno-enviro-economic study comparing a hybrid system consisting of the grid/wind turbine and solar cell is done. The wind turbine is analyzed using four types of commercially available vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs). According to the literature review, no similar study has been performed so far on the feasibility of using VAWTs and also no work exists on the use of a hybrid system in the studied area. The results indicated that the lowest price of providing the required hydrogen was $0.496 which was achieved using the main grid. Also, the lowest price of the electricity generated was $1.55 which was obtained through using EOLO VAWT in the main grid/wind turbine/solar cell scenario. Also, the results suggested that the highest rate of preventing CO2 emission, which was also the lowest rate of using the national grid, with 3484 kg/year was associated with EOLO wind turbines where only 4% of the required electricity was generated by the national grid. •The most economically optimal state of producing electricity and hydrogen is the use of a grid.•For grid/PV scenario, 35% of the electricity is generated by solar cells and the rest the national grid.•In the grid/wind scenario, the use of Spiral turbine is economically recommended.•For grid/wind/PV scenario, the most cost-effective state of producing hydrogen is related to using Spiral turbine.•For remote areas EOLO wind turbine is recommended.