Techno-Economic Analysis of On-Site Hydrogen Production and Storage System with Solar PV for Telecom Sites in Sri Lanka

This paper discusses the reliability and economic feasibility of introducing hydrogen production and storage system and solar photovoltaic systems to telecommunication sites powered by diesel generators in Sri Lanka. The data from 3039 telecom base station sites in Sri Lanka are analyzed in the study and several test cases are defined by the results. The tool HOMER was used to determine the optimum composition of the system components in different test cases and the economic analysis was done using results of the simulation. This study reveal that the concept is viable when the demanded power is low and reduce the costs by omitting the requirement of a battery backup and a diesel generator. When the demand gets higher, the study suggests that by optimizing the rating of diesel generators and the composition of system components better results can be obtained. However, in some cases of higher demands it is not feasible to introduce hydrogen production and storage system.