High Performance PEM Electrolyzer for Cost-effective Grid Balancing Applications

Transcription

1 High Performance PEM Electrolyzer for Cost-effective Grid Balancing Applications 7 th IEA ANNEX 30 Electrolysis Workshop at 3M, St. Paul USA 10-Oct-2017 Laila Grahl-Madsen (EWII Fuel Cells A/S) This project has received funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Hydrogen Europe and N.ERGHY Duration: 36 months Start date: April 2016 Total budget: 2.65 M EC Funding: 2.5 M EC Contract number: Project Coordinator: Dr. Antonino Salvatore Arico (CNR-ITAE) Exploitation Manager: Graham Robson (ITM Power plc) Project Manager: Dr. Anna Molinari (Uniresearch) 1

2 Overall project objectives Next generation water electrolysers must achieve a good dynamic behaviour (rapid start-up, fast response, wider load and temperature ranges) to provide proper grid-balancing services and thus address the increase of intermittent renewables interfaced to the grid The focus of the project is concerning with the development of a low cost PEM electrolyser optimised for grid balancing service The activities are addressed to both stack and BoP innovations for an advanced 180 (nominal) kw (transient) PEM electrolyser The advanced system will be demonstrated in a 6-month field test at Emden in Germany The aim is to bring the developed technology from TRL4 to TRL6, demonstrating the PEM electrolyser system in a P2G field test Deliver a techno-economic analysis and an exploitation plan to bring the innovations to market An advanced BoP in terms of power tracking electronics, high efficiency AC/DC converters, high temperature ion exchange cartridges, advanced safety integrated system, new control logic Improved stack design (injection moulded components, flow-field free BPP, improved coatings) TRL6 ITM ITM Enhanced MEAs and components (Aquivion membranes, coreshell/solid solution electrocatalysts) TRL4 EWII CNR-ITAE SLV 2

3 Calculated lifetime [h] Reducing the electrolyser CAPEX and OPEX costs Several strategies are applied in HPEM2GAS to lower the overall cost thus enabling widespread utilisation of the technology Three-fold increase in current density (resulting in the proportional decrease in capital costs) whilst maintaining cutting edge efficiency with respect to the state of the art Material use minimisation approach in terms of reduced membrane thickness whilst keeping the gas cross-over low, and reducing the precious metal loading Improving the stack lifetime to 10 years with a reduction of the system complexity without compromising safety or operability Potential / V CNR-ITAE Cell Potential / V Current Density / A cm C 40 C 50 C 60 C 70 C 80 C 90 C 1A cm -2 CNR-ITAE 80 C 1,000,000 Catalyst Efficiency Loading 100, Time / h 10,000 Single cell ambient pressure & 65±5ºC EWII Nafion 115 Nafion 117 Experimental MEAs EoL criteria: U-Cell = 2 V 1,000 1,000 10, ,000 Test 1. 0±1 A/cm 2 & 65±5ºC Field testing at Emden (Germany) Emden s ambition is to use 100% renewable energy (electricity and gas) by Stadtwerke Emden (SWE) is the local supplier for electricity water and gas Two wind farms have been built in the city of Emden which provides 117% (240 MWh/y) of the electric energy for homes Photovoltaic panels have been installed on a noise barrier along the motorway Current technical limitations of the local grid at the city of Emden are: Need for utilizing excess wind power in specific periods of the year; Need to address the congestion of transmission; Need to stabilize the electricity grid from frequent fluctuations; Need to implement storage technologies for load shifting, peak shaving and to enhance power quality. HS EL Predicted generated wind electricity for Emden region, Germany for a typical week in January Reproduced courtesy of the University of Emden. 3

4 Field testing in Germany From Jan-2016 and onwards, subsidies for renewable electricity in Germany will decrease to 0 if the spot market price for wind power is negative for 6 consecutive hours 11_bwe_sechsstunden-regelung_energybrainpool.pdf Average excess power produced by SWE on a weekly basis 4

5 Excess power as years duration line About 18 month is the length of the evaluation period Over the observation period of 13,176 hours the electrolyzer will be in operation in 3,529 hours since this is the time where excess power is available Power to electrolyzer as year s duration line Due to the high surplus capacities, it is to be expected that the electrolyzer will be operated at full load during periods of excess current, otherwise it will be shut down. 5

6 Project structure Milestones MS1 Membrane scaling-up and optimisation completed (meeting the specifications) SLV MEMBRANES M12 WP3 Large active area (>415 cm 2 ), thin (<90 µm) membranes with enhanced conductivity (>0.2 S cm -1 ) and low gas cross over (<0.5 vol% H 2 in the O 2 stream under differential pressure >80 bar) MS2 Large-batch optimized electrocatalysts meeting the specifications CNR ELECTROCATALYSTS M12 WP3 Overpotentials for OER <200 mv, HER <50 mv IR-free at 3 A cm -2 with noble metal loading <0.4 mg cm -2 anode and <0.1 mg cm -2 cathode 6

7 MS3 Optimised large area MEAs meeting the specifications EWII Milestones Membrane-electrode Assembly (MEAs) M18 WP4 Performance of 3 A cm -2 at U Cell <1.8 V under nominal operation and up to 4.5 A cm -2 under transient operation (U Cell <2 V). Total noble metal loading per MEA <0.5 mg cm -2 MS4 75 cells PEM electrolysis stack meeting the specifications ITM Stack M28 WP4 Stack prototype consisting of 75 cells with > 415 cm 2 active area, operating at a current density 3 A cm -2 with an average cell potential < 1.8 V (nominal) and degradation <5 µv/h/cell in a 1000 h test. MS5 PEM electrolysis technology validated at 180 kw system level ITM System M30 WP5 Electrolysis system with nominal hydrogen production capacity > 80 kg H 2 /day, efficiency better than 82% HHV H 2 and energy consumption lower than 48 kwh/kg H

8 The defined test protocols takes point of departure in the HPEM2Gas scenario: The HPEM2Gas MEA w/aquivion membrane and ultra low PGM-content HPEM2Gas PEM operational conditions e.g. high MEA current density (nominal 3 A/cm 2, max 4.5 A/cm 2 ); P H2 =80 bar A 180 kw PEMEC stack with an active area of 415 cm 2 and 75 cells Both stationary and grid balancing system operation is considered Important feature is the defined AST-protocols MEAs are considered, but just as important is the definition of AST for other stack components!!! Example of testing procedure (cycling) for the electrolysis stack conditioning baseline cycle Set of cycles Monitorin g Overall procedure Extended monitoring & evaluation HPEM2GAS Presentation 16 8

9 Example of testing procedure (cycling) for the electrolysis system preparation conditioning Set of cycles Overall procedure Monitoring & evaluation HPEM2GAS Presentation 17 Thank you for your attention 9