Brightcon 2025, hackathon & courses in Grenoble and online

Topic
Hydrogen-based decentralized energy systems (H2-DES) are gaining prominence as potential solutions for local decarbonization of heat and power supply. We realized the life cycle assessment (LCA) of a H2-DES based on a combined heat and power internal combustion engine (ICE-CHP), the LCA being grounded on a techno-economic analysis (TEA) model implemented in OpenModelica. The study addresses the relative underexploration of H2-ICE-CHP technologies in the LCA literature, offering a comprehensive analysis based on real hourly demand data of buildings in Offenburg (Germany), a municipality involved in the Franco-German Interreg CO2InnO project. Several scenarios (28 divided into 4 families) were designed with varying configurations and dimensioning — PV, wind, battery, H2 storage. Results show that impacts are strongly dependent of the scenario family and the system boundaries, highlighting the necessity of careful system design, systematic scenario and boundary comparison in policy and environmental reporting. This work required the results of the OpenModelica TEA model to be interfaced with the ActivityBrowser LCA software through custom Python-based routines and manual implementations. Despite clear limitations, the routines could be used as building blocks for future automation efforts. This presentation thus aims to share a situated feedback on the approach, achievements and difficulties of code-curious users who wish to methodologically contribute towards the development of an open-source TEA-LCA workflow.

Highlights:
1. Scenarios of H2-ICE-CHP decentralized systems assessed using real data buildings demand in a TEA-LCA approach
2. Open-source framework with limited TEA-LCA integration explicitly discussed and propositions of ways forward.

Concise description:
Situated feedback on the approach, achievements and difficulties of code-curious users who wish to methodologically contribute towards the development of an open-source TEA-LCA workflow, through a case study on Hydrogen-based decentralized energy systems.