The techno-economic analysis of a hybrid zero-emission building system integrated with a commercial-scale zero-emission hydrogen vehicle

This study conducts a techno-economic analysis to seek the feasibility to integrate a zero-emission building (ZEB) with a commercial-scale hydrogen vehicle (HV). The parametric analysis is conducted in 16 simulation groups with respect to the equipment options of the solar thermal collectors, the ground source heat pump (GSHP) and the HV refueling methods, while each group contains a series of cases with a range of on-site renewable electricity (REe) generation capacities between 0 and 16 kW. The assessment criteria include the annual operational equivalent CO₂ emission and the relative net present value (NPV_rel). By the parametric analysis, the sets of the non-dominated cases within the cloud of the analysed solutions have been comprehensively investigated regarding the aims to reduce the emission and the cost. With respect to the criteria of the equivalent emission and NPV_rel under the normal market scenario of the electrolyzer (5000 EUR/kW), none of the cases with the on-site H₂ system can be identified as superior to those without the on-site H₂ system. The non-dominated cases will mainly happen to those with a 0–9.61 NOCT kW photovoltaic (PV) panel and a 5 kW GSHP but without any solar thermal collector, which have a range of NPV_rel between −4115 and 12,556 EUR along with a range of emission between 19.72 and 6.65 kg CO_2,eq/m² a. However, by reducing the electrolyzer cost to the lowest market scenario of 2000 EUR/kW, parts of the cases with the on-site H₂ system start to challenge those without the on-site H₂ system. Moreover, the change of the emission factor of the H₂ fuel from 0.267 to 0.141 kg CO_2,eq/kWh_LHV will not alter the set of the overall non-dominated cases, but will uniformly reduce the annual emission of these cases by a magnitude of 3.83 kg CO_2,eq/m² a.