A regional decision support system for onsite renewable hydrogen production from solar and wind energy sources

Hydrogen technologies driven by renewable energy sources (RES) represent an attractive energy solution to ensure environmental sustainability. In this paper, a decision support system for the hydrogen exploitation is presented, focusing on some specific planning aspects. In particular, the planning aspects regard the selection of locations with high hydrogen production mainly based on the use of solar and wind energy sources. Four modules were considered namely, the evaluation of the wind and solar potentials, the analysis of the hydrogen potential, the development of a regional decision support module and a last module that regards the modelling of a hybrid onsite hydrogen production system. The overall approach was applied to a specific case study in Liguria region, in the north of Italy. Copyright (C) 2011, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.