Design and analysis of a renewable energy network based on fuel cells in a residential community

This paper aims to develop a methodology to quantify the effects of different combinations of energy supply systems. A residential community with 12 households was modelled and simulated in TRNSYS to evaluate the performance of different power/ heat network scenarios under dynamic electric and heat loads. The first scenario starts with gas-based fuel cell systems and heat tanks, and additional renewable energy systems such as PVs, batteries and geothermal systems were incrementally added to create different scenarios. The impact of capacity and operational variables on unmet demand was quantified by variance-based sensitivity analysis and scenario-specific optimal design, derived by economic analysis. The overall performance of the network was different depending on the scenario, but the scenario including fuel cells and GSHP system was selected as the most economical design in this case study.