Development of novel or hybrid concepts for reliable, high capacity and energy-efficient H2 compression systems at real-world scale

Experience and lessons learnt from hydrogen demonstration projects over the past years clearly point to hydrogen compressors as one of the most critical components in terms of costs, performance and reliability. As one of the core components of most hydrogen installations, improving the state of the art of compressors is of high importance for the future success of hydrogen landscapes.

Several projects[[https://www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/projects-repository_en]] have successfully shown the potential of different novel compression technologies and first prototypes have been commissioned and operated at limited scale (4 kg/h in COSMHYC, 8 kg/h in COSMHYC DEMO). There is now a need to scale-up the technologies to >1 t/day to meet the requirements of emerging use cases, incl. gas grid injection, HRS for heavy mobility and distribution supply chain (refilling centre). In addition, while previous projects focused on use cases with limited constraints on the hydrogen source (very high purity, stable supply pressure and flow rate), there is a need to increase the robustness and flexibility of new compression technologies to adapt to a broader range of hydrogen sources with varying gas quality to decrease costs and improve reliability in an industrial context

This topic aims to further develop innovative compression concepts, helping them reach the necessary maturity for large scale deployment. It involves developing, scaling-up, building, installing and testing a compression prototype at a client site with real-life applications (e.g. a hydrogen refuelling station, hydrogen production from renewable energies coupled with a filling centre, gas grid injection) and at a representative scale:

• Filling Centres: 4-20 tonnes/day;
• HRS: 0.5-4 tonnes/day;
• Pipeline for pure GH2 or blended gas: 1-10 tonnes/hr.

It should consist of either an innovative compression solution, or a combination of different solutions including at least one innovative technology. The solution should demonstrate high levels of availability and efficiency, with low costs, low maintenance requirements, and high operational safety.

The demonstration duration should be at least one year of one compression solution at representative scale in a real commercial use case (gas grid injection, mobility, filling centre or a combination of uses) with an availability of at least 95%. In addition, the compression concept’s potential regarding scalability, industrialisation and commercialisation at mass production scale should be proven.

The technology should demonstrate to be well-adapted to a wide range of hydrogen-based applications in all parts of the value chain. In addition, the concept should show its ability to be directly connected to a renewable hydrogen source without the need for further compression steps, and to scale-up above capacity in the mid-term, above reported.

The scope of the project should include the development, manufacturing, installation, and operation of the innovative hydrogen compressor, as well as the necessary resources for measuring, monitoring, treating and interpreting data for a techno-economic analysis throughout the project. The durability of the solution should be shown using specific accelerated stress tests, highlighting a low degradation rate and high reliability.

Proposals should identify a demonstration site and end-users where the compression technology will be applied. A limited share of the funding may be allocated to the costs induced by the surrounding infrastructure to which the compression solution will belong and contribute, including studies, civil engineering, and other equipment (such as HRS, filling centre or gas grid injection facility).

This topic is expected to contribute to EU competitiveness and industrial leadership by supporting a European value chain for hydrogen and fuel cell systems and components.

It is expected that Guarantees of origin (GOs) will be used to prove the renewable character of the hydrogen that is used. In this respect consortium may seek out the purchase and subsequent cancellation of GOs from the relevant Member State issuing body and if that is not yet available the consortium may proceed with the purchase and cancellation of non-governmental certificates (e.g CertifHy[[https://www.certifhy.eu/]]).

Proposals should provide a preliminary draft on ‘hydrogen safety planning and management’ at the project level, which will be further updated during project implementation.

Activities are expected to achieve TRL 7 by the end of the project.

At least one partner in the consortium must be a member of either Hydrogen Europe or Hydrogen Europe Research.

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.