Mansour, Abdellatif Ait , Tilioua, Amine
2026-06-01 RESULTS IN ENGINEERING 2026 30(卷), null(期), (null页)
Solar energy is one of the most promising and environmentally friendly sources to meet the world's growing future energy demands. However, its intermittent nature, which depends on sunlight hours and weather conditions, limits its reliability. To overcome this challenge, an energy storage system is required to store excess energy produced during peak sunlight hours and release it when solar power generation is insufficient. Among the available storage technologies, green hydrogen stands out as a highly promising option due to its eco-friendly characteristics offering long-term storage without significant losses, and its ability to be converted into other forms of energy without harmful emissions. This study investigates the hydrogen production yield of a hydrogen system coupled with three types of photovoltaic (PV) technologies-monocrystalline, polycrystalline, and amorphous silicon-operating in a semi-desert region of Morocco. The results show that the hybrid PV-hydrogen system achieves annual yields exceeding 33 kg H2/kWp/year even after more than seven years of operation. A comparison of the three PV technologies reveals very similar hydrogen outputs, with Mono-Si decreasing slightly from 34.06 to 33.97 kg H2/kWp, Poly-Si from 34.11 to 33.77 kg H2/kWp, and a-Si from 33.60 to 33.32 kg H2/ kWp, corresponding to degradation rates of 0.25%, 1.02%, and 0.82%, respectively. At the system scale, total hydrogen production shows only a minor decrease from 201.56 kg to 200.17 kg (0.69%), indicating stable longterm performance under harsh environmental conditions. Based on these yields and techno-economic assumptions, the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) for a 1 MW PV-PEM electrolyzer system is estimated to range between 3.68 and 3.87 USD/kg, depending on the PV technology considered. These results demonstrate that Morocco's solar resources enable not only technically reliable but also promising green hydrogen production, confirming the strong potential of semi-desert regions for large-scale hydrogen generation. potentially competitive, pending further validation.