Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy The techno-economic analysis of a hybrid zero-emission building system integrated with a commercial-scale zero-emission hydrogen vehicle Sunliang Cao a, ⁎ , Kari Alanne b a Department of Building Services Engineering, Faculty of Construction and Environment, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong b Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Aalto University, PO Box 14400, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland HIGHLIGHTS • Detailed techno-economic analysis for a ZEB integrated with a commercial-scale HV. • The hybrid system performances regarding the equivalent CO 2 emission and the cost. • Evaluating the hybrid ZEB-HV system with on-site and external H 2 refueling methods. • Evaluating the hybrid ZEB-HV system with various renewable component configurations. • Investigating the non-dominated solutions regarding the techno-economic criteria. ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Zero emission building Zero emission vehicle Zero energy building On-site renewable energy Hydrogen vehicle Building and transportation ABSTRACT This study conducts a techno-economic analysis to seek the feasibility to integrate a zero-emission building (ZEB) with a commercial-scale hydrogen vehicle (HV). The parametric analysis is conducted in 16 simulation groups with respect to the equipment options of the solar thermal collectors, the ground source heat pump (GSHP) and the HV refueling methods, while each group contains a series of cases with a range of on-site renewable elec- tricity (REe) generation capacities between 0 and 16 kW. The assessment criteria include the annual operational equivalent CO 2 emission and the relative net present value (NPV rel ). By the parametric analysis, the sets of the non-dominated cases within the cloud of the analysed solutions have been comprehensively investigated re- garding the aims to reduce the emission and the cost. With respect to the criteria of the equivalent emission and NPV rel under the normal market scenario of the electrolyzer (5000 EUR/kW), none of the cases with the on-site H 2 system can be identified as superior to those without the on-site H 2 system. The non-dominated cases will mainly happen to those with a 0–9.61 NOCT kW photovoltaic (PV) panel and a 5 kW GSHP but without any solar thermal collector, which have a range of NPV rel between -4115 and 12,556 EUR along with a range of emission between 19.72 and 6.65 kg CO 2,eq /m 2 a. However, by reducing the electrolyzer cost to the lowest market sce- nario of 2000 EUR/kW, parts of the cases with the on-site H 2 system start to challenge those without the on-site H 2 system. Moreover, the change of the emission factor of the H 2 fuel from 0.267 to 0.141 kg CO 2,eq /kWh LHV will not alter the set of the overall non-dominated cases, but will uniformly reduce the annual emission of these cases by a magnitude of 3.83 kg CO 2,eq /m 2 a. 1. Introduction and background In the worldwide scale, the building and transportation sectors have altogether been accounted for around 50% of the final energy con- sumptions of all the end-use sectors [1], whereas this percentage is even higher in the developed economies, such as 60% in the EU [2] and 70% in the US [3]. Regarding these large proportions, stricter legislations and directives have been regulated for the building and transportation sectors in many countries and regions aiming for the continuous reduction of the equivalent CO 2 emissions or primary energy con- sumptions, while the so-called “Zero-Emission/Energy Buildings (ZEBs)” and “Zero-Emission/Energy Vehicles (ZEVs)”, which were mainly studied in the academic world [4–7], have more frequently appeared in the short and long-term governmental roadmaps and plans. For example, in the EU, the EU Directive 2010/31/EU regulates that all new buildings built from the beginning of 2021 should be nearly zero- energy buildings [8], while the EU Directive 2009/33/EC regulates that the purchase of the vehicles should take the energy and environmental https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.11.079 Received 9 June 2017; Received in revised form 15 November 2017; Accepted 17 November 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: sunliang.cao@polyu.edu.hk, caosunliang@msn.com (S. Cao). Applied Energy 211 (2018) 639–661 0306-2619/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T