Sustainable water-energy innovations for higher comfort of living in remote and rural areas from developing countries: From seawater to hydrogen through reversible Solid Oxide Cells

Access to affordable renewable energy and clean water are among the most prominent challenges humankind faces to ensure a non-discriminatory comfort of living. Innovation in system engineering meets with new energy carriers, enabling synergistic effects defined as “sector-coupling”. For instance, hydrogen and Reversible Solid Oxide Cells (rSOCs) are innovative technologies that yield multiple valuable effects. This paper evaluates the impact of such technology in novel PV-hybrid storage mini-grids with close access to seawater, achieving simultaneous renewable energy storage and seawater desalination thereby. The novel mini-grid operation is simulated in archetypal rural communities from developing countries (Sub-Saharan Africa) for 365 days of operation. The study encompasses three development scenarios in agreement with sustainability policies in force. The analysis of results allows finding the fittest mini-grid asset to achieve techno-economic optimization. A trade-off solution is identified with a critical reading of results in a future perspective: the Levelized Cost Of Electricity (LCOE) for a system with at least 70% renewables penetration is in the range of 0.29–0.43 €/kWh, while the rSOC runs with the only energy storage task. Moreover, the availability of seawater pushes LCOE below 0.20 €/kWh since it is also possible to benefit from the desalination function. This result aligns with the most economic mini-grid asset that can be implemented while embedding a significant energy performance increase.