Operational Challenges for Low and High Temperature Electrolyzers Exploiting Curtailed Wind Energy for Hydrogen Production

Understanding the system performance of different electrolyzers could aid potential investors achieve maximum return on their investment. To realize this, system response characteristics to 4 different summarized data sets of curtailed renewable energy is obtained from the Irish network and was investigated using models of both a Low Temperature Electrolyzer (LTE) and a High Temperature Electrolyzer (HTE). The results indicate that statistical parameters intrinsic to the method of data extraction along with the thermal response time of the electrolyzers influence the hydrogen output. A maximum hydrogen production of 5.97 kTonne/year is generated by a 0.5 MW HTE when the electrical current is sent as a yearly average. Additionally, the high thermal response time in a HTE causes a maximum change in the overall flowrate of 65.7% between the 4 scenarios, when compared to 7.7% in the LTE. This evaluation of electrolyzer performance will aid investors in determining scenario specific application of P2G for maximizing hydrogen production.