Optimal Planning of Stand‐Alone Microgrids With Wind‐PV‐Hydrogen Integration: The Impact of Hydrogen Vehicles as Mobile Energy Storage

ABSTRACT

In recent years, renewable power plants and hydrogen vehicles (HVs) have gained significant attention in power and transportation systems, raising critical technical and economic challenges requiring comprehensive study. This paper investigates the optimal planning of a stand‐alone microgrid incorporating renewable energy sources (wind and photovoltaic) alongside hydrogen‐based energy storage and vehicle‐to‐grid capabilities, considering reliability cost. For calculating the reliability cost of the microgrid, comprehensive reliability modelling of hydrogen vehicles is performed. To address load reliability and curtailment issues, the proposed microgrid integrates a water electrolysis device, a hydrogen storage tank and a fuel cell as a comprehensive energy storage system, while hydrogen vehicles are equipped to participate in electricity generation through fuel cells during peak demand hours when renewable generation falls short of load requirements. The planning model aims to minimise the total cost, comprising investment costs for wind and photovoltaic units and reliability costs associated with load curtailment penalties, solved using the particle swarm optimisation algorithm. Numerical simulations in MATLAB reveal that implementing hydrogen storage systems reduces total operational costs from $1,188,452,305 to $675,783,395, representing a 43.1% cost reduction, while revenue generation through hydrogen sales and vehicle‐to‐microgrid schemes demonstrates remarkable economic potential: selling 50% of stored hydrogen yields income of $140,732,809 and implementing a scheme where 10% of hydrogen vehicles participate in V2G operation increases income to $906,603,012, demonstrating a 544.2% increase in revenue compared to hydrogen sales alone. These results demonstrate that hydrogen vehicles and storage systems significantly enhance both the economic efficiency and reliability of renewable energy‐based microgrids.