Techno-economic comparison of lithium-iron phosphate battery and hydrogen energy storage for wind power-based microgrids

Wind power-based microgrids require effective energy storage to mitigate renewable intermittency while ensuring reliable and economically viable operation. However, the techno-economic trade-offs between lithium‑iron phosphate battery and hydrogen energy storage remain insufficiently quantified, particularly under wind overbuilding conditions. This study presents a unified techno-economic comparison of both storage technologies using wind and load data from San Nicolas Island. A physics-based wind-battery microgrid model developed in MATLAB/Simscape is systematically compared with a previously established wind‑hydrogen microgrid under a unified rule-based energy management scheme. The proposed framework explicitly incorporates wind overbuilding and co-optimizes system cost and wind energy curtailment using a multi-objective genetic algorithm. Under baseline assumptions, the wind‑hydrogen microgrid achieves approximately 18% curtailment, a capital cost of $9.1 M, and a levelized cost of energy of $0.183/kWh. In comparison, the optimal wind–battery microgrid yields approximately 28% curtailment, a capital cost of $9.6 M, and a levelized cost of energy of $0.229/kWh. Although battery storage offers higher operational efficiency and is attractive when moderate upfront investment is prioritized, hydrogen storage provides greater economic benefits when high renewable utilization and reduced curtailment are required. These findings demonstrate that storage selection depends on system design priorities and provide a quantitative framework for selecting suitable storage technologies for remote wind-based microgrids and military installations.