H2020
Europeo
ExpectedOutcome:The current generation of Low Temperature Water Electrolysers (LT-WE) are demonstrated on a large scale and are ready for mass production. However, to reduce the Levelised Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH) and to make renewable hydrogen competitive with hydrogen from fossil sources, continuous improvements to LT-WE systems that avoid energy and cost intensive downstream mechanical compression processes, especially in the first stages, are required. Therefore, to maintain and accelerate the European leadership position in water electrolysis technology and innovation in the whole supply chain, new research and innovation (in parallel to upscaling) are crucial in the electrolyser stack design as whole and the different critical components including Balance of Plant (BoP).
Low temperature water electrolysers are expected to produce hydrogen at high pressure (from 50 to 80 bar), accelerating the adoption in several applications such as gas grid injection, as well as utilisation in the chemical industry and at hydrogen refuelling stations (HRS), circumventing the initial compression stages.
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following...
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ExpectedOutcome:The current generation of Low Temperature Water Electrolysers (LT-WE) are demonstrated on a large scale and are ready for mass production. However, to reduce the Levelised Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH) and to make renewable hydrogen competitive with hydrogen from fossil sources, continuous improvements to LT-WE systems that avoid energy and cost intensive downstream mechanical compression processes, especially in the first stages, are required. Therefore, to maintain and accelerate the European leadership position in water electrolysis technology and innovation in the whole supply chain, new research and innovation (in parallel to upscaling) are crucial in the electrolyser stack design as whole and the different critical components including Balance of Plant (BoP).
Low temperature water electrolysers are expected to produce hydrogen at high pressure (from 50 to 80 bar), accelerating the adoption in several applications such as gas grid injection, as well as utilisation in the chemical industry and at hydrogen refuelling stations (HRS), circumventing the initial compression stages.
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
Contributing to keep European leadership for pressurised hydrogen production including innovative embedded compression approaches based on: Alkaline (AEL) or Proton Exchange Membrane (PEMEL) or Anionic Exchange Membrane (AEMEL) Electrolyser systems;Contributions to full scale demonstrators by 2027;New business models for end use applications such as hydrogen injection in the existing gas grid and utilisation in the chemical industry;A boost for future dedicated transmission gas network and methanol ammonia production while strengthening EU supply chain and HRS developers. Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following objectives of the Clean Hydrogen JU SRIA:
Improving efficiency by 2-4% (lower heating value, LHV) compared to the use of a mechanical compressor 0.5kWh for mechanical compression of 1kg H2 from 30 to 80 bar;Increase system and components reliability and significantly reduce compression energy needs resulting in an overall lower levelised cost of hydrogen (LCOH) below 3 €/kg once integrated in the multi-MW electrolyser platform assuming 40 €/MWh and 4,000 full load hours operation;Demonstrate the value of electrolysers for the power system through their ability to allow higher integration of renewables. Research findings and outcomes at stack and balance of plant level will contribute to speed up the reduction of the levelised cost of hydrogen. Proposals should investigate the high-pressure effects on the overall electrolysis process, since the increase of gas solubility might reduce the dynamic operating range while increase the corrosion/degradation of the materials.
Some of the barriers to be addressed are in line to novel design concepts and compatible materials while finding some high-pressure specific components might be challenging.
Research will contribute to a faster achievement towards the 2024 KPIs of the Clean Hydrogen JU SRIA, whilst allowing electrolysers to a fully integrated operation with renewable energy sources (RES) and direct gas grid connection and limiting the use of critical raw materials and precious metals as oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts or replace them completely with other (more) available metals.
The project results will also contribute to speed up the achievement of some of the key 2024 KPIs of the Clean Hydrogen JU SRIA for LT-WE according to the following figures for each technology:
AEL, Electricity consumption @ nominal capacity (kWh/kg) 49, Degradation (%/1,000 hrs) 0.11, Minimum pressurisation levels (bar) 50, Minimum stack size (kW) 50;PEMEL, Electricity consumption @ nominal capacity (kWh/kg) 52, Degradation (%/1,000 hrs) 0.15, Minimum pressurisation levels (bar) 80, Minimum stack size (kW) 50;AEMEL, Electricity consumption @ nominal capacity (kWh/kg) 53, Degradation (%/1,000 hrs) 0.9, Minimum pressurisation levels (bar) 50, Minimum stack size (kW) 25. Due to the higher pressure, the temperature may also be raised to above 100°C, which will in turn drastically reduce the H2 production energy consumption contributing to reduction in overall hydrogen production costs.
Scope:High-pressure electrolysers should be compatible with direct injection into chemical industry and gas networks both onshore and offshore as the avoidance of mechanical compressors are of crucial importance to reduce the LCOH and improve the availability of systems. The developed electrolysers may reach low LCOH for both centralised and decentralised applications due to the unique modular approach.
The scope of this project is to develop the next generation of water electrolysers (PEMEL or AEMEL) operating below 150 ºC for pressurised hydrogen production at the pressure of minimum 50 bar for AEL and AEMEL and 80 bar for PEMEL further advancing innovations developed in projects[1] like NEPTUNE and PRETZEL.
To this extent, breakthroughs in materials science of cell components should encompass advances in the cell design, cell architecture and BoP modules. This requires a completely new design enabling: low energy consumption and low degradation rates while contributing to reduce the hydrogen production costs.
Novel stack concepts should be designed, whilst innovations in BoP (e.g., integration of innovative compression solutions with electrolyser stacks), advanced materials with longer term durability and components (membranes/diaphragms, porous transport layers, bipolar plates, catalysts) developed and integrated into a short-stack prototype.
Targeted prototype scale and cell size should be appropriate for targeted application but a scale of minimum 50 kW for AEL and PEMEL and 25 kW for AEMEL, including larger cell areas than SoA, should be addressed.
Proposals should demonstrate how the concepts developed will be validated in a laboratory (TRL4) but should also include testing in relevant environment (TRL5) to pave the way for end-use applications (e.g. technology could be tested for injection in transmission natural gas grid). This includes the validation at the single cell and stack levels, testing the components at nominal, steady state and dynamic conditions and identifying a best candidate solution.
Operations at elevated pressures should be validated under various operating conditions (understood as directly scalable to multi-MW electrolysers) in order to develop new control strategies and to optimise operation at high-pressure and evaluate the effect of pressure in the case of hot starts and cold starts.
Proposals should investigate the high-pressure effects on the overall electrolysis process, both with respect to the effect of increased gas solubility, bubble-formation and the effect on electrode overpotentials and ohmic losses as well as the associated increase in gas cross-over at elevated pressures.
Optimal stack and cell design in terms of structure and geometry (e.g. spacing distances within the cell) should be within the scope of proposals.
Research on corrosion effects on the cells and/or lifetime prediction model and mitigation strategies should be conducted in order to maintain lifetime and degradation.
Proposals are expected to address sustainability and circularity aspects.
Activities developing test protocols and procedures for the performance and durability assessment of electrolysers and fuel cell components proposals should foresee a collaboration mechanism with JRC (see section 2.2.4.3 "Collaboration with JRC"), in order to support EU-wide harmonisation. Test activities should adopt the already published EU harmonised testing protocols[2] to benchmark performance and quantify progress at programme level.
Activities are expected to start at TRL 2 and achieve TRL 5 by the end of the project.
The conditions related to this topic are provided in the chapter 2.2.3.2 of the Clean Hydrogen JU 2022 Annual Work Plan and in the General Annexes to the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021–2022 which apply mutatis mutandis.
[1]https://www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/projects-repository_en
[2]https://www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/knowledge-management/collaboration-jrc-0_en
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