Feasibility Assessment of Green Hydrogen Production for Application in Steelmaking Technology

Steel production is a fundamental industry and one of the earliest links in the value chain of goods and services. However, conventional steelmaking has long been associated with significant environmental pollution. Consequently, the global deployment of green hydrogen as both an energy carrier and a means of decarbonizing the final product has increased substantially in recent years. Hormozgan Province, due to its proximity to the Persian Gulf, offers favorable conditions for utilizing seawater as a feedstock for hydrogen production and for deploying floating photovoltaic (FPV) systems to supply electricity for hydrogen generation via electrolysis. In this study, a suitable site for the installation of seawater pretreatment facilities was first identified. The seawater salinity reduction process was then modeled using the WAVE software. After estimating the energy required for electrolysis and primary hydrogen production, the layout and configuration of the solar power system were simulated using the PVSOL software. Based on the simulation results, employing floating photovoltaic sectors to supply the required energy and assuming 8 hours of daily operation, the system is capable of producing more than 18.5 t of hydrogen annually. By increasing the number of buffer basins and FPV sectors, the production capacity can be scaled to meet the desired demand.