Estimation of efficiency of using hydrogen and aluminum as environmentally-friendly energy carriers

• We simulate energy system based on the aluminum energy carrier for electricity production.
• Comparisons of different types of installations base on aluminum energy carrier and hydrogen are present.
• Cost of electricity generated based on “aluminum” energy is lower than the cost of it produced based on hydrogen energy.
• The maximum economic effectiveness of aluminum energy carrier is achieved by using aluminum fuel cells.

The present work is devoted to technical and economic studies of an energy systems based on the hydrogen and aluminum energy carriers. Particular attention is paid to installations for electricity production from aluminum fuel as the least studied component of the described system. A mathematical model is constructed for each studied thermal power installations. The models were applied to solve the problems of optimizing the installation parameters by the criteria of maximum net efficiency and the minimum specific investments (at the maximum efficiency).