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ENERGIX-Stort program energi

HYSTACK – Low cost, high efficiency PEM electrolyser stack

Alternative title: HYSTACK - PEM elektrolysepakke med høy effektivitet og lav kostnad.

Awarded: NOK 16.0 mill.

Project Number:

321466

Project Period:

2021 - 2023

Funding received from:

Organisation:

Partner countries:

The recently published EU strategy for hydrogen identifies renewable, green hydrogen as a key priority to achieve "the European Green Deal," and the EU has set a target of installing at least 6 GW of electrolysis capacity by 2024 and at least 40 GW by 2030. The Hydrogen Council has published a roadmap for hydrogen outlining the markets until 2050. In this roadmap, the demand for hydrogen is estimated to be 560 million tons, which corresponds to a total electrolysis capacity of up to 4000 GW, resulting in a potential annual electrolysis market in Europe of 15 to 30 billion kroner. The main advantage of HYSTACK electrolysis technology is that it enables over a 150% increase in current density/hydrogen production compared to other electrolyzers. This can result in up to a 60% reduction in capital costs for the electrolysis package, which is the main cost driver for a water electrolyzer. Alternatively, HYSTACK can operate with the same production capacity but with at least 10% lower energy consumption. HYSTACK is a flexible electrolysis technology optimized for either low CAPEX or OPEX, offering cost-effective hydrogen production services for large-scale applications. The innovation is a patented concept based on a decade of research and development at SINTEF. In the project, Hystar has developed a finalized design of a PEM electrolysis stack optimized for automated mass production. The stack has a capacity of 750 kW and can produce up to 15 kg of hydrogen per hour. The stack has been fully qualified, and functional tests have been conducted in Hystar's own laboratories. The planned delivery of the first commercial units is expected during the second half of 2023.

The HYSTACK project has enabled Hystar to develop a world leading PEM stack platform for production of green hydrogen which will be used in all of Hystars upcoming electrolyser projects. This market is rapidly expanding and Hystar foresees sales of several 100 MW of this unit from 2025 and onwards. The project has made it possible for Hystar to build significant additional competence within several scientific and engineering fields for stack design and manufacture as well as increasing the competence at the collaborating R&D providers. The increased performance of the Hystar PEM electrolyser stack reduces the energy consumption of the water electrolysis process from around 55 kWh/kg to 50 kWh/kg which in turn will reduce the cost of production of hydrogen as well as reducing the need for renewable power.

The HYSTACK project goal is to develop next generation PEM electrolyser for large scale hydrogen production. The innovation of this PEM electrolyser lies in the combination of using five times thinner PFSA membranes than membranes used in state-of-the-art PEM electrolysers and changing from the conventional water feed to only using humidified air on the anode. This enables more than 150% increase in the current density/hydrogen production rate compared to other electrolysers using the same energy input and resulting in up to 60% reduction in the capital costs of the electrolyser stack Due to the use of a much thinner polymer membranes, it is not possible to use conventional electrolyser stack components and design platforms. Today's PEM electrolyser stacks use components and materials with very rough surfaces and component thickness tolerances not suitable to be used in the HYSTACK concept. Therefore, a significant R&D effort must be carried out to develop an optimal design and to investigate suitable materials and components for this stack. To realise the HYSTACK innovation, it is imperative to address the following research: 1) Research and development of bipolar plates (BPP) flow field design, 2) Characterisation of catalyst coated membranes (CCMs) and understanding of degradation mechanisms and 3) Development of porous transport layers (PTLs) and understanding their transport properties.

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Funding scheme:

ENERGIX-Stort program energi