Solar energy-based hydrogen production and post-firing in a biomass fueled gas turbine for power generation enhancement and carbon dioxide emission reduction

Biomass and solar energies hybridization can complement their individual drawbacks in helping to supply clean energy. In this work, practical feasibility analysis is presented for an innovative hybrid configuration of biomass solar system in which the solar energy is used for hydrogen production to eliminate its fluctuations and intermittent nature. The electrical power generated via the photovoltaic-thermal panels is utilized for hydrogen production using the proton exchange membrane electrolyzer. The produced hydrogen is proposed to be utilized as a supplementary fuel in a post-firing stage for a biomass fueled gas turbine plant. Thermoeconomic analysis is conducted to investigate the proposed system performance and optimization is carried out based on levelized cost of electricity as the objective function. Also, the proposed system performance is compared with that of conventional biomass-fueled combined cycle without hydrogen post-firing. The results indicated that, integration of hydrogen post-firing would result in a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 22.7%, under the optimum conditions. Also, it brings about an increment of power generation capacity by 24.1% for a constant input rate of biomass. However, the levelized electricity cost for the proposed system is found to be higher than that for the conventional system due to the additional costs imposed by solar panels and proton exchange membrane electrolyzer.