Impact of polygeneration topology on the technoeconomic performance of green hydrogen production utilizing integrated CPVT systems

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a year-long hour-by-hour dynamic comparative analysis of solar-driven polygeneration configurations at three Egyptian Sea coast locations — Hurghada, Suez, and Port Said. A MATLAB/SIMSCAPE computational framework is developed and validated, coupling a concentrating parabolic trough collector (PTC) to two receiver technologies: a conventional concentrating photovoltaic-thermal (CPVT), receiver-A, and a high-efficiency GaInP/GaInAs/Ge triple-junction photovoltaic-thermal (C3JT), receiver-B. Both are integrated with proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer and multi-effect evaporation (MEE) desalination units. Four configurations are evaluated: Polygeneration-I (Cases I-A and I-B) producing hydrogen and freshwater, and Polygeneration-II (Cases II-A and II-B) producing hydrogen and exporting electricity. The results show that the C3JT architecture consistently outperforms CPVT by 57.1–57.7% in annual hydrogen production across all configurations and locations. A global minimum levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) of 2.909 USD/kg is achieved by Case II-B at Hurghada, representing a 32.6% reduction relative to the Polygeneration-I CPVT baseline (Case I-A) at the same location. MEE thermal integration introduces an energy partitioning trade-off that reduces system-to-hydrogen HHV efficiency to 4.53–7.43% across Polygeneration-I configurations, yet this is more than offset by freshwater revenue credits in the economic framework. The results also demonstrate the economic viability of concentrating solar polygeneration in Egypt without requiring gigawatt-scale deployment.