Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization and Environmental Effects, vol.46, no.1, pp.5219-5235, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
Interest to renewable energy sources has been increasing while the environmental impacts of fossil-based fuels have been becoming more and more evident day by day. For this reason, in this examination, the design of solar energy-assisted hybrid systems integrated with fuel cells has been realized. Taking into account the sunshine hours in seven cities in different regions of Turkey (Ankara, Antalya, Erzurum, Sanliurfa, Izmir, Izmir, Istanbul, and Trabzon), the energy production of a photovoltaic system with an installed power of 1000 kW and a hybrid system with a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), which is planned to be installed, were theoretically calculated and compared. In the study 91,549.8 kg of hydrogen can be produced using the annual electricity generation of Şanlıurfa, which has a long sunshine duration, and stored in a volume of 1,089,879.18 m3. In this framework, using this hydrogen, an annual average of 4118.5 MW of electricity can be generated from the PEM fuel cell. On the other hand, the lowest sunshine duration is observed in Trabzon. Even in provinces with less sunshine hours, such as Trabzon, the energy increase provided by the hybrid system is negligible. Therefore, the daily amount of hydrogen produced in Trabzon can be calculated as 178.62 kg and, hence 2892.8 MW of electricity can be produced annually in the PEM fuel cell. If the energy needs of cities with high populations such as Istanbul and Erzurum were met by a hybrid system with PEMFC instead of a photovoltaic system with an installed capacity of 1000 kW, 907.74 MW and 945.02 MW more electricity was generated, respectively. These analyses provided a comparative evaluation of the solar potential of each region as well as the performance of photovoltaic systems and PEMFC hybrid systems. This study is seen as an important step toward determining the effectiveness of different technologies in Turkey’s energy transition process and developing appropriate energy solutions at the local level.