Techno-economic assessment of hybrid energy flexibility systems for islands’ decarbonization. A case study in Italy

Geographical Islands have been considered a challenging environment to test renewable energy integration strategies as well as cutting-edge technologies due to the alternation between actual grid-connected and island mode. Energy system flexibility is foreseen as a strategy to integrate higher renewable share and reduce adverse events to the Power Grid. At the same time, the storage options for supporting high Renewable Energy Systems (RES) share remain still just an option in many countries, especially for Europe. In this research, the Catania city is considered for the case study in the Mediterranean climate region from Sicily Island in Italy. HOMER software is used to simulate the economic and technical use of photovoltaic panels/wind turbines/fuel cell/electrolyzer and hydrogen tank to meet the demand for 2 MW energy. It is pointed that photovoltaic panels and wind turbines can complement each other in some months of the year for production power. Photovoltaic panels provided 72% of the total energy and have higher efficiency than wind turbines and fuel cells. The results show that to meet the needs of 2 MW of the region, a capital cost of 4.85 million euros should be spent, which return of investment (ROI) is 2.59 million euros in the estimated 25-year life of the project