Spatio-temporal evaluation of green hydrogen production in Ecuador

Abstract

This study evaluates the techno-economic conditions of green hydrogen production based on the combined operation of geographically-dispersed and complementary wind and solar power farms in Ecuador. Representative sites with high potential of wind and solar resources are used for the calculations. The hourly meteorological data of these sites is used to simulate the power output of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power farms. Then, based on the renewable power output and the associated generation cost, the production of hydrogen is simulated using an electrolysis optimization model. Using a set of indicators, we evaluate the results of three combinations of different PV and wind farms to identify the relation between the renewable power and the hydrogen production and cost. Results show that all combinations produce green hydrogen at a levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) of less than US$4 per kg. It is found that the LCOH can be related to the hourly variation and the cost of the renewable generation. This means that the higher the stability of the renewable power output, the lower the simulated LCOH. We will use the findings of this study to evaluate the performance with more combinations of PV and wind power farms in a future work.