Investigation of Solar-Driven Hydroxy gas production system performance integrated with photovoltaic panels with single-axis tracking system

In this work, a solar-driven alkaline electrolyzer producer of hydroxy gas is proposed, which is integrated with photovoltaic panels with a single-axis north-south solar tracking system. The main novelty of this work is providing a transient analysis of integration of an alkaline electrolyzer to the PV panels equipped with a solar tracking system. Furthermore, the transient model of the alkaline electrolyzer is employed in order to calculate its operating temperature, hydroxy production rate, and the other operational parameters at various hours of the day. The electrolyzer and the PV panels with a tracking system are modelled by the EES software. It is assumed that the system is installed in the city of Shahrood, and therefore, the geographical data for this city is used for a seasonal analysis. The effective areas of the electrolyzer electrodes and the PV panels are also assumed to be fixed at 0.25 m(2) and 50 m(2), respectively, in this work. Based on the results obtained, employment of the solar tracking system results in a significant increment of the PV panel power absorption rate, resulting in a power increment up to 4.2 kW in the summer. On the other hand, the transient analysis of the proposed alkaline electrolyzer shows that the maximum operating temperature reaches 80 C-o at around 12 AM in the summer, causing achievement of a maximum electrical current peak in the summer. Therefore, an efficient cooling system should be employed in the summer for the decrement of the alkaline electrolyzer temperature. The proposed system is capable of producing 7.6 m(3)/day, 10.4 m(3)/day, 7.2m(3)/day, and 4.1 m(3)/day of hydroxy gas in the spring, summer, fall, and winter, respectively.