Hydrogen is a potential future energy carrier, but reliable storage of the hydrogen is required for widespread use. Metal-hydrides (MH) are suitable materials for safe, stable and long-term hydrogen storage applications such as off-grid and hybrid solar systems due to the ability to store hydrogen at moderate pressure and temperature. However, poor thermal properties of MH beds coupled with the need for managing the significant amount of heat generated during the absorption and desorption reactions, is a serious barrier for fast hydrogen uptake and release unless an efficient design for the MH tank and the heat exchange system is used. Appropriate design of the tank and thermal management systems as well as a suitable choice of material can improve the performance of the MH systems and make them more suitable for commercial use. It is not usually practicable to build and test different MH tanks for large scale applications and explore the impact of different design and process parameters on the performance of the tanks. In contrast, mathematical models can be employed for examining various parameters, scenarios and used to predict the effect on the MH system without the cost of materials and manufacturing time. These models, however, must be accurate in order to reliably design large scale MH tanks and components and this accuracy can be achieved by refinement of the model’s parameters and equations based on practical systems. In turn, the accuracy of the model also needs to be validated through experimental data obtained from operating tank systems under different conditions.