Researchers in Spain has found that combining PV power generation with fuel cells and battery storage may help homes considerably reduce their levelized cost of energy. Their simulation reportedly demonstrated homes may also become completely self-sufficient.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A group of researchers from the University of Cantabria in Spain has conducted a pilot project for a self-sufficient home that runs exclusively on photovoltaics, batteries, and hydrogen storage.
“This plant combines PV panels and hydrogen (PVHyP) as a method of seasonal energy storage, achieving the ambitious target of accomplishing an electrically self-sufficient social housing unit throughout the year,” the group said.
For their simulation, the scientists collected data from January 2022 to December 2023 for an 80 m2 social home that is located in Novales, a small village in northern Spain.
Electricity bills from the years before the renewable electrification of the house showed that it consumed 2,513 kWh/year with an average daily consumption of 6.88 kWh.
“When the solar irradiation is insufficient to cover the demand of the house, the batteries supply the necessary energy to the dwelling,” explained the academics.
They presented their findings in the study “Sustainable and self-sufficient social home through a combined PV‑hydrogen pilot,” published in Applied Energy.
The original article contains 464 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
@[email protected] My dataset shows that in Ontario the household annual kWh is 5x higher. In addition the seasonal storage requirement is 4.6MWh which makes economics difficult even with H2.
This study is based on a household in Spain. Different countries will probably need different setups.
@[email protected] The PICEA system is interesting. At ~$100/kWh that would still cost me ~$50000 to get my home through the Ontario winter. Costs still need to come down at least one order of magnitude.
@[email protected] Typo. 4.6MWh x $100/kWh =~$500000
A hydrogen-base system would get much cheaper per kWh as it scales up. Most of the cost is probably the fuel cell, electrolyzer, batteries, etc. The tanks probably cost very little.
