A Model-Based Approach to Assessing Operational and Cost Performance of Hydrogen, Battery, and EV Storage in Community Energy Systems

Community energy systems are expected to play an increasingly important role in the decarbonization of the residential sector, but their operation depends on how different electricity and heat storage technologies are configured and used. Existing studies typically examine storage options in isolation, limiting the comparability of their operational roles. This study addresses this gap by developing a decision-support framework that enables a consistent, operation-focused comparison of battery energy storage, hydrogen storage, and electric-vehicle-based storage within a unified community-scale hybrid energy system. The model represents electricity and heat balances in a hub formulation that couples photovoltaic and wind generation, a gas engine, an electric boiler, thermal and electrical storage units, hydrogen conversion and storage, and an aggregated fleet of electric vehicles. It is applied to a stylized Polish residential community using local demand, generation potential, and electricity price data. A set of single-technology and multi-technology scenarios is analyzed to compare how storage portfolios affect self-sufficiency, self-consumption, grid exchanges, and operating costs under current electricity market conditions. The results show that battery and electric vehicle storage primarily provide short-term flexibility and enable price-driven arbitrage, as reflected in the highest contribution of battery discharge to the electricity supply structure (5.6%) and systematic charging of BES and EVs during low-price hours, while hydrogen storage supports intertemporal shifting by charging in multi-hour surplus periods, reaching a supply share of 1.4% at the expense of substantial conversion losses. Moreover, the findings highlight fundamental trade-offs between cost-optimal, price-responsive operation and autonomy-oriented indicators such as self-sufficiency and self-consumption, showing how these depend on the composition of storage portfolios. The proposed framework, therefore, provides decision support for both technology selection and the planning and regulatory assessment of community energy systems under contemporary electricity market conditions.